Getting comfortable with Academic Writing
Academic writing can feel challenging because it isn’t the kind of writing we do elsewhere in life. Graduate students are often returning from long periods away from formal study and may therefore have had little chance to practice their academic writing skills, so this can contribute to anxiety around the process of research writing.
Academic writing is complex because it involves a synthesis of different types of writing—descriptive, analytical, persuasive, critical—as it engages with the processes of producing logical, well-reasoned and evidence-based arguments. To engage with these layers of complexity, writers must learn to consciously craft components, such as paragraphs, sections, tone and style, to achieve clarity and concision in their prose.
Different disciplines have slightly different expectations and approaches to writing and even within the same discipline, academic journals may insist on variations of format and style. The discrete sections of theses and academic papers also have their own specific generic features which need to be mastered.
All of this means that it is crucial to think of yourself as a writer from the outset of your graduate research project. Setting up regular writing practices from the beginning will help you to develop your skills and confidence as an academic writer.
Tips
- Think of yourself as a writer from the outset.
- Aim to write something, even just for ten minutes, on most days.
- Write a quick critical paraphrase of each article or chapter that you read (and save it somewhere you can find it).
- Read academic articles mindfully, not just for content, but for style, tone and structure.
Additional Resources
Enrol for the Writing with Confidence 1 and 2 workshops in the RED seminar series.
Check out these two short videos by Cecile Badenhorst: