Yusuf Siddiqui

Basics of Academic Writing Writing In Academe 1- Letting go of Dreams Many of us were drawn to academic life because we yearned to live “the life of the mind.” We hoped to spend quiet hours thinking great thoughts while discovering important things. We imagined having creative and supportive colleagues and plenty of time to talk with them about our ideas. The movies show professors having deep conversations in wood-paneled offices or taking contemplative walks between classes down ivy-covered lanes. No wonder outsiders assume that we have plenty of time to write! If only. Even though we realize that this image is a fantasy, we may still cling to some version of it. We know that our current situation feels writing-deflective, even perhaps writing-hostile. We hope that once we land a tenure-track job, or get tenure, or become a full professor, it will be easier to find ways to write. Or maybe if we get to a “better” university we will find more support for our scholarship. It is easy to keep yearning for an academic utopia, somewhere we can be productive, valued, and supported. That’s certainly what I yearned for. Even though I was surrounded by evidence that universities weren’t at all like the dreams in my head or the images in the movies (and I was a media studies scholar, and my father was a professor!), I kept seeking that book-lined study in the company of supportive colleagues, with ample time to read, write and think. Someday I would have just what I needed to write lots, easily and well. The struggle would finally be over, and I would live in an academic arcadia. Eventually I realized that my actual situation was never going to match my dreams. This allowed me to face reality—if I wanted to write, then I needed to find ways to write productively in the real academic world. Once I stopped blaming my circumstances, I was able to find ways to secure reliable writing time, space, and energy. I learned how to recognize and find ways around the writing myths that kept me anxious and miserable. For far too many of us, academic writing is a perplexing burden, a source of constant anxiety, self-doubt, and confusion. The entry stakes are very high—publish or perish. But even after tenure the writing stakes continue to be daunting. Our self-respect, as well as the respect of our peers, depends on our ability to keep writing. We know that scholarly productivity is the constant coin of our realm, yet most of us struggle mightily in our efforts to accrue enough of it. 2 – Demystifying Academic Writing For generations we have wrapped academic writing in mystery—keeping quiet about our own writing issues and publicly shaming those who visibly struggle with theirs. This has to change. Our trouble with writing is not evidence of our unfitness for the profession. It is not some secret sign of unworthiness or ineptitude. It is nothing to be ashamed of. When our writing isn’t happening, we need to become willing to admit this and ask for help . writing involves a particular set of practices that can be mastered and shared. If academic writing is a craft that can be learned, then we need to be doing a much better job of helping ourselves—and each other—learn how to practice our craft. That is the only way we can break through the silence and shame that has kept so many of us from figuring out how to be productive scholars. Every step of the way we can acknowledge that academic writing is psychologically and emotionally challenging for all of us. It is not “just you” who is having trouble, and it is not “your fault” that it is hard. Each of us can benefit from requesting and using the writing guidance and advice of our colleagues. But sadly, the academic environment rarely offers support for this central, and most challenging, element of our professional life. Rightly or wrongly, the measure of our professional worth continues to be our ability to write and get published. Writing and publishing is how we gain status and attention as graduate students, how we win postdocs or entry-level positions, how we become eligible for tenure-track positions, and finally—if we are fortunate—how we achieve tenure. THE STRUCTURE OF AN ACADEMIC JOURNAL ARTICLE The success or failure of an academic article is determined long before the first word is written or the first letters are typed. It all begins with the initial conceptualization and design of a study. This is confirmed by Summers who lists four main reasons why articles are rejected by leading academic journals: • The research does not make a sufficiently large contribution to the “body of knowledge” (i.e., to the literature) in a specific discipline. The study is purelydescriptive or merely replicates previous research without adding anything new. • The conceptual framework (i.e., the literature review) is not well developed. It lacks precise definitions of the core constructs and compelling theoretical motivation for the stated hypotheses. • The methodology used in the study is seriously flawed (e.g., the sample is too small or the reliability and validity of the measures used are questionable). • The author’s writing style is disorganised and the article is not structured properly. The focus of our discussion will primarily be on addressing the last reason mentioned above - a disorganised writing style that leads to a poorly structured article. We will, in other words, assume that the study has been properly designed to address the other three problems. Articles in most academic journals are roughly 20 to 25 A4 pages (1½ line spacing) or4000 to 7000 words in length. An academic journal article in which the findings of quantitative research are reported will typically have the structure outlined in Table 1. Table 1: Typical structure of an academic article reporting the findings of a quantitative study Title 8 – 15 words Abstract 200 – 250 words Keywords 6 – 8 keywords Introduction 500 – 1 000 words Literature review (Alternatively: Background, conceptualdevelopment or conceptual framework) 1 000 – 2 000 words Methods (Alternatively: Methodology) 500 – 1 000 words • Sampling Target population and research context Sampling Respondent profile • Data collection Data collection methods • Measures (Alternatively: Measurement) Results (Alternatively: Findings) 1 000 – 1 500 words • Descriptive statistics (Alternatively: Preliminary analysis) • Hypothesis testing (Alternatively: Inferential statistics) Discussion 1 000 – 1 500 words • Summary of findings • Managerial implications • Limitations • Recommendations for future research Total (4 000 – 7 000 words) READING STRATEGIES Your post-secondary courses will sharpen both your reading and your writing skills. Most of your writing assignments—from brief response papers to in-depth research projects—will depend on your understanding of course reading assignments or related readings you do on your own. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to write effectively about a text that you have not understood. Even when you do understand the reading, it can be hard to write about it if you do not feel personally engaged with the ideas discussed. This section discusses strategies you can use to get the most out of your reading assignments. These strategies fall into three broad categories: 1. Planning strategies  to help you manage your reading assignments 2. Comprehension strategies  to help you understand the material 3. Active reading strategies  to take your understanding to a higher and deeper level. Planning Your Reading Have you ever stayed up all night cramming just before an exam? Or found yourself skimming a detailed memo from your boss five minutes before a crucial meeting? The first step in handling your reading successfully is planning. This involves both managing your time and setting a clear purpose for your reading. Managing Your Reading Time You will learn more detailed strategies for time management in Section 1.2: Developing Study Skills, but for now, focus on setting aside enough time for reading and breaking your assignments into manageable chunks. For example, if you are assigned a 70-page chapter to read for next week’s class, try not to wait until the night before to get started. Give yourself at least a few days and tackle one section at a time. Your method for breaking up the assignment will depend on the type of reading. If the text is very dense and packed with unfamiliar terms and concepts, you may need to read no more than 5 or 10 pages in one sitting so that you can truly understand and process the information. With more user-friendly texts, you will be able to handle longer sections—20 to 40 pages, for instance. And if you have a highly engaging reading assignment, such as a novel you cannot put down, you may be able to read lengthy passages in one sitting. As the semester progresses, you will develop a better sense of how much time you need to allow for the reading assignments in different subjects. It also makes sense to preview each assignment well in advance to assess its difficulty level and to determine how much reading time to set aside. Tip Instructors at the post-secondary level often set aside reserve readings for a particular course. These consist of articles, book chapters, or other texts that are not part of the primary course textbook. Copies of reserve readings are available through the university library, in print, or more often, online. When you are assigned a reserve reading, download it ahead of time (and let your instructor know if you have trouble accessing it). Skim through it to get a rough idea of how much time you will need to read the assignment in full. Setting a Purpose The other key component of planning is setting a purpose. Knowing what you want to get out of a reading assignment helps you determine how to approach it and how much time to spend on it. It also helps you stay focused during those occasional moments when it is late, you are tired, and when relaxing in front of the television sounds far more appealing than curling up with a stack of journal articles. Sometimes your purpose is simple. You might just need to understand the reading material well enough to discuss it intelligently in class the next day. However, your purpose will often go beyond that. For instance, you might also read to compare two texts, to formulate a personal response to a text, or to gather ideas for future research. Here are some questions to ask to help determine your purpose: Principles of Academic Writing Clear Purpose. The goal of your paper is to answer the question you posed as your topic. Your question gives you a purpose. The most common purposes in academic writing are to persuade, analyze/synthesize, and inform. Persuasive purpose – In persuasive academic writing, the purpose is to get your readers to adopt your answer to the question. So you will choose one answer to your question, support your answer using reason and evidence, and try to change the readers’ point of view about the topic. Persuasive writing assignments include argumentative and position papers. Analytical purpose – In analytical academic writing, the purpose is to explain and evaluate possible answers to your question, choosing the best answer(s) based on your own criteria. Analytical assignments often investigate causes examine effects, evaluate effectiveness, assess ways to solve problems, find the relationships between various ideas, or analyze other people’s arguments. The “synthesis” part of the purpose comes in when you put together all the parts and come up with your own answer to the question. Examples of the assignments include analysis papers and critical analyses. Informative purpose – In informative academic writing, the purpose is to explain possible answers to your question, giving the readers new information about your topic. This differs from an analytical topic in that you do not push your viewpoint on the readers, but rather try to enlarge the readers’ view. Keys to Academic Journal Writing There are a variety of factors that contribute to quality academic writing. It is important that you understand how to write for academic purposes as there are different types of writing, and not all writing styles are sufficient or appropriate for certain audiences. There are a few keys to writing for academic journals that should be recognized: 1. It is important for you to remember that academic writing is very formal. It is not the same as writing a short story or poetry. Understanding this will allow you, as the writer, to make sure that the tone of the written piece is very professional and free from the use of clichés, jokes or personal anecdotes. 2. Academic journal writing is analyzed for its writing quality. It is very important that you take the time to make sure that such aspects as spelling, grammar and format are correct. Academic pieces that have a numerous errors will not be taken seriously. 3. Effective academic journal writing should always be supported by citations and references. Correctly citing your sources is extremely important when writing for academic purposes as it shows that the proper credit is given to the individuals that were used throughout your academic piece for support of subject matter Writing Quality and Academic Journal Writing One of the most important aspects of academic journal writing is the writing quality. 4. The content for academic writing should be well identified by the topic. The reader is expecting that the content matter will be related to the topic. Likewise, when you place subtopics within an academic writing piece, the content should match the subtopic. 1. There should be an obvious flow to the academic article. In fact, in most cases, someone reading your academic piece for specific information should be able to go to a subtopic and obtain all the information that is needed. The structure of the academic article is also a part of the writing quality. It will be very hard for people to understand what you are writing if structure is lacking. Proper structure within an article allows you, as the writer, to effectively communicate ideas about a particular topic. Likewise, proper structure also enables the reader to access information efficiently. The ability for others to access information in your academic writing piece is also very important if you desire to be published. Clarity of Purpose of Academic Journal Writing The goal of academic writing is to inform an audience about a particular topic in a very professional manner. Academic journal writing calls for Clearly stating your purpose 1. Presenting your information in a manner that is simplistic enough for others to read and understand while still having the tone of an academic piece. 2. Presenting your ideas clearly when writing an academic piece. 3. Being concise, without being completely stripped of the necessary facts that are needed to support your topic REFERENCES Alam, I. & Perry, C. 2002. A customer-oriented new service development process. Journal of Services Marketing, 16(6):515-534. Alawadi, A.M. & Palvia, P.C. 2002. Developing and validating an instrument for user- perceived web quality. Information & Management, 39:467-476. American Psychological Association. 2001. Publications manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th ed. 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