236 pages · 2022
Refining Your Academic Writing
Strategies for Reading, Revising and Rewriting
By Pat Thomson
- Published
- December 30, 2022
- Imprint
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- ISBN
- 9781003031680
Overview
About this book
Revision is often taken as a largely instrumental process which happens after the real work of writing is done – it is an unavoidable and tedious process. Refining by contrast is imaginative work, it requires craft, connoisseurship and courage, and builds knowledge about academic writing purposes and practices. Refining Your Academic Writing will help you complete your writing project and provides a reading, revising and rewriting repertoire that you can adapt and add to. It offers ways to think about revision and a basic tool kit which will help you to identify what needs your attention and why.
This accessible book draws on and extends some of the most heavily used posts on Thomson’s popular academic writing blog Patter, as well as tried and tested writing workshops. Exercises and templates are grounded in research and theory on doctoral experience and academic writing. The wider context of academic writing is clearly explained, and the terms used to describe text refinement build understanding while challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about revision, editing and proof-reading.
Written with a light touch, this book is ideal reading for doctoral and early career researchers, and provides strategies needed to support the writing revision process.
The ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia.
These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game – the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors – and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.
Subjects
Education
Inside the book
Table of contents
Select a chapter to read its abstract.
ChapterIntroduction
Pages: 6
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book helps the researchers to complete their writing project. It provides a reading, revising and rewriting repertoire that researchers can adapt and add to. The book offers ways to think about revision and a basic toolkit which will help researchers to identify what needs their attention and why. It brings together revised and reworked blog posts together with some new material. The book is designed to complement, not replicate, texts which focus on writing and publishing in English. It is a compendium of strategies designed to support reading and rewriting, essential aspects of revising and refining. Many of the strategies are equally useful for science writers, but some may need adaptation.
Chapter 1Why ‘refining’?
Pages: 17
Introduces the framework used in the book – three interconnected stages of refining writing: (1) foundation, (2) generation and (3) response. Explains key terms used – refining, revisioning, revising, copy-editing and proofing. Introduces the text types discussed in the book – research proposal, thesis, journal article, book chapter and book.
Chapter 2Refine with attitude
Pages: 14
Emphasises the importance of not being precious about words. Offers two playful strategies for approaching a text. Discusses the importance of the inner critic and developing habits of regular refining and responding. Offers three strategies for (1) reading your own work, (2) annotation and (3) getting constructive feedback.
Chapter 3Start at the beginning
Pages: 17
Suggests that it is important to see the big picture in your text. Offers six strategies: (1) find the point, (2) find your controlling purpose, (3) recover your initial enthusiasm, (4) analyse before writing, (5) start with the most significant revisions and (6) write small.
Chapter 4See your whole text
Pages: 13
Addresses the overall point of the paper, its take home message – and offers four strategies: 1) re-reading your problem-solution, (2) checking for core elements, (3) using a meta-commentary skeleton and (4) making a re-outline.
Chapter 5Strengthen your argument
Pages: 17
Explains argument. Because it is important that readers can keep track of argument, there are five strategies offered for diagnostic reading: (1) testing for argument, (2) using ‘meaning-making’ questions, (3) checking the five elements, (4) teasing out the red-thread of contribution and (5) aligning the headings.
Chapter 6Make your text trustworthy
Pages: 18
Addresses the importance of making the reader confident that the text is trustworthy through a judicious combination of showing and telling. Offers three strategies: (1) staking a claim, (2) checking the audit trail and (3) using academic resources.
Chapter 7Write with authority
Pages: 16
Writing as someone who sounds knowledgeable about their topic adds to trustworthiness. Three strategies for authoritative writing are outlined: (1) how you talk about yourself in the text, (2) using qualifiers and (3) writing an authoritative conclusion.
Chapter 8Stating your case
Pages: 13
Academic writers often struggle with authority when they work with literatures; this is because of the tangle of text and identity challenges involved. Four strategies are offered: (1) getting an overview, (2) moving past lists, (3) find the disappearing author and (4) removing the cowardly “not”.
Chapter 9Quote and cite wisely
Pages: 13
Excessive quoting and citing do not create more authoritative writing, but less. Four strategies are offered for taking charge of quotations and citations: (1) cite to steer the argument, (2) quote dumping, (3) quotomania and the more light-hearted (4) cottonwool test.
Chapter 10Find your flow
Pages: 15
Academic writing flows well when the writer carefully manages transitions and gets the ‘right’ structure and content. Three strategies are offered for closer text reading and rewriting: (1) finding ghosts in the text, (2) transitions between sections and paragraphs and (3) finding flow within paragraphs.
Chapter 11Tackle turgid prose
Pages: 18
Academic writing is often seen as incomprehensible and dense. Five strategies are offered to deal with the tendency to write impenetrably: (1) remove the excess, (2) vary sentence length, (3) vary sentence structure, (4) check the balance of active to passive verbs and (5) cut down on nouny prose. There are also details of two additional diagnostic software resources.
Chapter 12Check your idiosyncrasies
Pages: 13
Revising is an opportunity to develop your own academic writing voice. However this does not mean ignoring clarity and meaning. Four strategies to address clarity are presented: (1) identify your code words, (2) find writing tics, (3) remove ambiguous pronouns and (4) revisit titles and headings.
Chapter 13Delight your reader
Pages: 12
Refining and revising can also mean paying attention to the artisanal craft of writing. There are three ‘writerly’ strategies offered: (1) refresh your ideas about academic writing, (2) conduct a Kano Analysis and (3) re-focus on ‘voice’.
Chapter 14Afterword: Tests and checklists
Pages: 12
Three holistic strategies are given for end-stage revising. They are: (1) the Walter Benjamin big fat book test, (2) the imaginary reader test and (3) the PhD checklist.