Postgraduate Tips III
What shapes academic writing?
What shapes academic writing?
Unlike creative writing (which is a mix of inspiration and imagination), academic writing is 100% organisation.
What these two genres (creative and academic) have in common is that both are enabled by determination - the willingness and ability to push on even, or especially, when the spirit is weak and telling you to brew another coffee or switch on Netflix rather than face an empty screen.
But organisation of what? That is the key question which all academic writers need to answer.
Fortunately, there is a template to follow:
Introduction
Context
Theory
Methodology
Data Analysis/Findings
Conclusion
Certainly in my discipline, sociology, the vast majority of theses, journal articles, even many book chapters, will follow this pattern. I cannot speak for other academic disciplines as I have no experience of writing within them.
If one is writing a sociologically-informed monograph (single authored book) then the template/structure may well be rather different and really only based on what is agreed between you and the publisher. But in the end, whatever you write it will have to be informed by theory and methodology; it will require contextualising and it will have to have an underpinning argument supported not by subjectivity but a sound evidential base, though from where you get that evidence is up to you.
This may all sound rather predictable and in a way it is, but really the best academic writing tells a story which resonates with the reader. It gives insights to the reader which they were subliminally aware of before they picked up your writing, but which the writing renders real and vivid.
In the final reckoning, academic writing is like all skills – it takes time to develop and the more you do of it the better you get.
Since 2017, Dr Stephen Whitehead has answered over 10,500 Quora questions, mostly on education, relationships, sociology, life and living, and philosophy. To date, his answers have received over 3.5 million views increasing at the rate of 75,000 a month. He has over 1000 followers. For more info, head here.
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