Academic Writing, Part 1

On Writing for the Academy

Part 1

              I want to start this blog by saying that I’m no expert on academic writing, but if I start it that way, you might not want to read it. So, instead I’ll say that I’m writing this blog just a couple weeks after being honored to have my first manuscript accepted with minor revisions to a top-tiered education journal as a first author (woohoo!). So, hopefully that lends me a bit of credibility to write this post. That said, I also want to disclose that I had a practitioner article rejected over a year ago which I have yet to pick up and revise for resubmitting, and I have had to revise both parts of my comprehensive exams. So, therein lies my journey in academic writing.

              In the next few paragraphs, I’ll share a few pointers I’ve picked up along the way that have been helpful with my academic writing. This short blog post is in no way an exhaustive how-to list for writing. Later, I’ll post a “Part 2” with additional resources I’ve found helpful and which others have shared with me as being helpful to them. And, I invite you to comment with what you’ve found helpful in your academic writing journey!

Setting Writing Goals

              I find it incredibly helpful to set goals for myself. If I am working on a paper with a specific deadline, I like to plan backwards. What do I need to have done each week in order for a paper to be complete by the deadline? I use those weekly goals to set daily goals for myself as I work on that project.

Scheduling Writing Time

              I know many folks benefit from a particular time block set aside each day for writing. I find that I can be flexible, but that it’s important for me to write each day because once I get out of that habit for a few weeks, it’s really hard to get back in a good writing mindset. For each writing project I’m working on, I create a recurring event in my Google Calendar (aka, my life) M-F to write an hour per day on that project until it’s done. Each week, I sit down and put together my calendar for the following week. I move those chunks of time around, sometimes recognizing that I can’t afford 5 hours per writing project the next week and making decisions about where to cut based on my writing goals and deadlines. I also find that I prefer writing for extended chunks of time on projects (2-4 hours) rather than 1-hour chunks, so I try to group them together. Each day when I check my calendar, I know when I need to sit down for three hours and work on my dissertation (yikes!).

Outlining

              I’m a huge advocate of outlining! I outlined this blog post. I’ve also created extended outlines where I insert quotations or key and supporting ideas I want to include in each section. One of my favorite writing exercises is backwards outlining. I use this when I need to re-organize the flow of what I’m writing, but I’m having a hard time doing that across multiple pages. I create a brief outline of what I wrote, then I reorganize the outline, and then I reorganize the paper.

Using Examples

              For just about every paper I start to write, I try to get my hands on an example of the genre I can use. I do this for fellowship proposals, course assignments, manuscript submissions, etc. Examples help me get a sense of what the reader might be looking for in a final submission, and sometimes I even borrow the headings directly from the example to outline and organize my own writing around, at least to start. I’m also pretty generous when it comes to sharing examples since I know how helpful this can be!

Written by Christa Haverly, fourth-year doctoral student at Michigan State University