From genre of academic essay to genre of professional essay as a scientific academic discourse's kind

The article present an overview of professional academic discourse. The characteristics of this concept are given in comparative relation to the concept of essay considered nowadays by many authors as a academic discourse. The author proves that a professional essay belongs to the genre of scientific academic discourse by addressing to the constitutive criteria for distinguishing the genres. These criteria suggested by prominent specialists in linguostylistics are: the communicative purpose of the work, its structure, the target audience, the length of the text.