How to write academically when you’re not an academic person: tips for social science dissertation students
I’m not an academic person.
I struggle to write academically.
I can’t write in that elaborate, wordy style you see in journal articles and books.
Is this you?
If you feel you can’t write ‘like an academic’, if it makes you feel weird and uncomfortable, then don’t. Please don’t.
Don’t try to be someone you’re not in your academic writing.
I did that for a very long time and in trying to sound smart, I ended up writing stuff that was impenetrable and just made me sound, well, like a bit of a self-important asshole!
There is another way to write academically, without having to learn a whole new language or sound like you’ve swallowed a dictionary, and I’m going to share that with you in this blogpost.
We will be covering how to…
Communicate your understanding of a topic;
Demonstrate your critical analytical skills;
Make your own contribution to the debate.
How to communicate your understanding of a topic
How do we communicate our understanding of the topic we’re writing about? How do we make this process an easy one, one that feels natural?
Well, this starts way before you begin tapping away on your keyboard. Because to write in a natural, accessible way - that doesn’t feel like an ordeal - we need to have genuine, unwavering confidence that we know our stuff.
So, before you start writing, make sure you spend plenty of time reading up on your topic, finding literature about it. Accept that sometimes, you’re going to need to sit there with a dictionary. Sometimes, you’ll have to read something multiple times before it ‘goes in’.
I still have to do this, it’s an unfortunate reality. I regularly feel stupid when I’m reading things that other academics have written - and I’m someone who became a professor at 36 and has published a whole load of my own academic writing - so you are not alone!
If you still don’t get something, please go and talk to one of your more relatable professors or lecturers. That might not be your personal tutor or your dissertation supervisor. That might be another member of staff. Have a chat with them about the thing you’re stuck on. Ask them if you can record that conversation so you can take some notes from it later. That is a perfectly reasonable request and I always say “Yes” when students ask me if they can do this.
How to demonstrate your critical analytical skills
Secondly, you need to demonstrate your critical analytical skills. A student told me recently, “I don’t feel I have the authority to judge other people’s research, I’m just a student, what do I know?”. That is nonsense. Your view matters. Your contribution matters. You can make judgements about other people’s research. Of course you can. Sometimes, you might not know exactly how to do that in a way that’s going to make you feel confident and that you’ve done a thorough job of it, so follow this process:
Describe
Start by describing the piece of research you’ve read. What is it about? What did it consist of? What were the key arguments the authors were making?
Interpret
Look at the findings of that piece of research, the arguments that the authors are making and consider, “To whom or what does this apply?”, “To whom or what does this not apply?”. Is this relevant in all situations or just some situations? Who or what have the authors ignored or missed out? What are the implications of their arguments for the people and things they haven’t covered?
Evaluate
Make a judgement about the value of the piece of research you’ve read. How valuable is it? What contribution does it make to the literature? What does it bring to the party? What does it do that other pieces of research haven’t?
How to make your own contribution to the debate
This is where it sometimes gets a bit more difficult because this involves firstly, finding your own academic voice, and secondly, expressing it in a way that feels natural for you.
You might sit down to write something, and you’re completely lost for words. You don’t know where to start.
Now, one thing I’ve noticed with some of my own students is that when they’re talking to me or their fellow students about their work, they do say what they think, they do bring something to the debate. They might say, “I’m not convinced by radical feminist theory because…”, or “I don’t think this piece of research says anything new”, or “I’m not convinced one way or the other, it’s probably a bit of both”.
However, this doesn’t always come across in their dissertation. They get confused about whether they’re able to give their opinion, or they don’t feel confident in doing so, so they just don’t.
One thing that I always recommend to eke out what your contribution might be is to ask a friend or relative to interview you about your dissertation research. With that person’s permission, record that interview. When you listen back to it, you’ll be able to pick out points to bring into your writing. Here are some questions you can get your friend or relative to ask you in that ‘interview’:
Tell me about what other people had said about this topic, were there different positions on it?
What did you want to achieve by doing your own research?
In what ways does your research support what other people have said?
In what ways does your research challenge what other people have said?
All in all, what’s your position on this topic now?
What do you feel really strongly about?
What are you not so sure about?
What do you mean by ….?
What’s that view based on?
One other really good thing about this exercise is that when you verbalise things, when you talk about them, it forces your brain to put them into accessible terms so the other person can understand you.
Until this point, it’s all a big soupy mess in your head, or on your screen, and it’s a bit chaotic. However, talking about it will smooth it out and you’ll actually come away from this exercise with some sentences, perhaps even some whole paragraphs that you can use in your dissertation.
This might be the first time you’ve actually had a conversation with someone else about your research, and you might find they they’ll ask you some other questions, things that you didn’t expect. That will be gold for your dissertation because it will give you plenty of other things to think about, which you would never have considered otherwise. Give it a go, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Next steps
If you’re ready to start writing now and want some additional help, check out my range of dissertation planners, cheat sheets and worksheets in my Dissertation Planner Shop!
