Source: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
Written by Thomas Basbøll
There is no shortage of advice about how to become a better, happier academic writer. Not only are there places you can go for a monthly or weekly dose of inspiration, there are vast archives of wisdom out there about everything from sentence structure to time management.
One of the most famous blogs for academic writers is Inger Mewburn’s Thesis Whisperer. As the name suggests, it is mainly directed at doctoral students, but their supervisors do well to read along too. Kim Mitchell has been blogging at Academics Write about her experiences as a writing instructor in a nursing school for about four years now. She has lots of interesting things to say about the relationship between “academic” writing and “professional” practice, many of which also apply to the business school context.
Helen Kara’s blog about research methods and practices is also well worth reading, as are Pat Thompson’s Patter and Rachael Cayley’s Explorations of Style, both of which offer detailed advice on style and structure. Anne-Wil Harzing is widely recognized for her work helping researchers present their publication histories for hiring and promotion purposes. She also maintains a very informative blog about academic writing.
Finally, in addition to running the LSE Impact Blog, Patrick Dunleavy has been writing about writing on his own blog Writing For Research.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug my own blog, Inframethodology, which I try to update once or twice a week with a new post, and which also has a number of stand-alone resources, guides, and videos. I, too, can be found on Twitter.
At the end of the day, advice is what you make of it. Read a little of it as you go, but don’t let it overwhelm you. What we say won’t always be right for you, or work in your particular situation, and sometimes we’re simply wrong. If you follow us over time, you’ll even sometimes find we admit it. The blogosphere is a work in progress. Just like you.
If you have questions or need advice on academic writing, please contact Thomas Basbøll