How to Fix Your Academic Writing Trouble – A practical guide
Inger Mewburn, Katherine Firth and Shaun Lehmann
List of tables ix
List of figures x
Acknowledgements xi
1 INTRODUCTION: YOU MAY HAVE ACADEMIC WRITING TROUBLES,
BUT YOU CAN FIX THEM! 1
1.1 Why you should buy this book 1
1.2 Time management for academic writing: the Pomodoro
Technique, Shut Up and Write, and boot camps 7
2 ‘YOUR WRITING DOESN’T SOUND VERY ACADEMIC’: HOW TO
CONVINCE YOUR READER YOU BELONG 12
2.1 How to unlearn high school English 13
2.2 ‘This sounds chatty or not scholarly’: getting
the academic tone right 16
2.3 ‘Who are you standing with?’: being argumentative in
your writing 18
2.4 Getting beyond ‘descriptive’ writing by entering the
theory wars 21
2.5 Using verbs to signal you belong, plus a verb cheat sheet 24
2.6 How to use references to show who your academic
network is (and isn’t) 28
2.7 Using references as magic tokens to power up your writing 30
2.8 ‘Do you really need all this detail?’: how and when to
use footnotes and appendices 32
3 ‘WHERE’S YOUR EVIDENCE FOR THIS?’: USING WHAT YOU KNOW
TO MAKE A CASE 37
3.1 How to understand how different disciplines use evidence
(and take advantage of it) 38
3.2 How to move from having a research question to having
an answer in your writing 41
3.3 The almost invisible structure of paragraphs 44
3.4 What is a warrant?: and how to use warrants to persuade
your reader 47
3.5 Signposting words: using conjunctive adverbs like
‘however’ correctly 49
3.6 Using figures to help and not hinder 52
Contentsviii Contents
4 ‘YOUR WRITING DOESN’T FLOW’: MAKING YOUR TEXT COHERENT
AND FLUENT 58
4.1 How to make sure your reader will understand what you are
trying to say 59
4.2 How to write a clear sentence 62
4.3 Use signposting to guide academic readers 67
4.4 Keep your sentences moving forward with themes and rhemes 69
4.5 Untangling your tenses 72
4.6 How to use free or generative writing to make progress
(and create flow) 75
4.7 Planning your writing with flexible techniques 79
4.8 Solving illogical structures with reverse outlines 86
5 ‘WAFFLE’: IMPROVING READABILITY BY MANAGING YOUR EXTRA WORDS 89
5.1 Writing one whole sentence at a time 90
5.2 How and when to use the passive voice 92
5.3 How to kill zombie words 95
5.4 Are you suffering from parataxis or hypotaxis? 97
5.5 Fighting weeds and cutting your word count 99
5.6 Get rid of filler words 101
6 ‘UNCRITICAL!’: TAKING A STAND IN YOUR WRITING 105
6.1 Who am I to question? 105
6.2 Can I use ‘I’? 109
6.3 How not to be unintentionally exclusionary in your writing 112
6.4 Avoiding excessive cleverness 116
6.5 Hedging and boosting language 119
6.6 Argument diagramming 122
6.7 How to be more logical 130
7 ‘WHERE’S YOUR DISCUSSION SECTION?’: STRUCTURING
YOUR WORK AS A WHOLE 134
7.1 Designing your dissertation as a whole work 135
7.2 Turning an annotated bibliography on steroids into a
proper literature review 138
7.3 Making and using a literature review matrix 141
7.4 How to write an abstract 144
7.5 How to write a good glossary 148
7.6 Structuring multidisciplinary work 151
8 THE END OF THIS BOOK, BUT NOT THE END OF YOUR DISSERTATION 154
Notes 156
References 158
Index 161Tables
2.1 Shaun’s table of examples for choosing Latinate or
Germanic academic terms 17
2.2 A verb cheat sheet 27
3.1 Table of epistemological (knowledge) differences
between disciplines 40
3.2 Interdisciplinary methods from Katherine’s PhD 40
3.3 When to use a conjunctive adjective, and how to know
it’s the right choice 51
4.1 Tense choice 73
4.2 Making a thesis map 82
4.3 Turning snowflake outline points into a dissertation structure 85
6.1 Critique table 107
6.2 Hedging phrases example 1 122
6.3 Hedging phrases example 2 122
7.1 Literature review matrix 143
7.2 Identifying the audiences for Inger’s dissertation 1503.1 Frequency histogram of housing values for a hypothetical
city area 54
3.2 Frequency histogram of housing values for a hypothetical
city area 55
3.3 Boxplot of house values for a hypothetical city area 56
3.4 Violin plot of values for a hypothetical city area 56
4.1 Start the spider diagram with a question or statement 80
4.2 Develop the spider diagram by filling in further questions 80
4.3 Snowflake outlines 81
4.4 Snowflake outlines: start with a triangle 83
4.5 Snowflake outlines: your triangle becomes a star 83
4.6 Snowflake outlines: your star becomes a rough ice crystal 84
4.7 Your outlined snowflake is now beautiful 84
5.1 Katherine’s writing cycle 92
6.1 Example argument spider diagram on a whiteboard 123
6.2 Two-part argument diagram 124
6.3 The argument diagram now has two premises 125
6.4 Alternative hypothesis argument diagram 126
6.5 Spider diagram with alternative hypothesis developed
through serial argument map 127
6.6 Completing the alternative hypothesis, mapped though
spider diagrams, with linked argument map 128
6.7 Bringing both sides of the argument together in a
spider diagram 129
7.1 Why chapters are not quite like content ‘buckets’ 136
7.2 A Venn diagram of audiences for Inger’s dissertation 150
Figures
Ableism 113
Abstract 144–47
Academic dialect(s) 4, 13, 46, 88–9,
151, 157
Academicese 12–13, 18
Adjectives 37, 95–97, 104
Adverbs 15, 37, 49–52, 67
Annotated bibliography 138–9, 141
Appendix 33, 35–6, 100, 140, 151
Argument 35–55, 58, 65, 67–9, 71, 77–9,
82, 86
Argument diagramming 122–27, 105–7,
118, 122–53
Barbara Lovitts 19
Beardsley, M.C 123–24
Becher and Trowler 13, 24
Becker, Howard 64, 95
Blogging 5, 155
Boice, Robert 77–8
Boosters 121
Booth et al 44, 46–8
Brick wall, as metaphor 76
Bruno Latour 20
Car driving as metaphor 4, 51, 69, 118
Chapters 66, 76, 79, 81–7, 92, 134–6, 140,
145, 152–4
Clarity 15, 33, 53–4, 59, 89, 92
Class 12, 26–7, 35, 112–16, 121
Clause 15, 49, 64–5, 70, 98–9, 146
Cleverness 116–119
Coherence 51, 59, 68, 142
Colonialism 115
Conference drinks party, as metaphor 31
Conjunctive adverbs 37, 49–52, 67
Courtrooms, as a metaphor 28, 47, 130
Critique table 107
Cutting words 99
Deduction 130–31
Descriptive 21, 53, 105, 108
Diagrams 36, 52, 59, 79, 105, 123, 127–8
Dissertation types 6, 14, 21, 65, 111,
134–5, 150
Doctoral orphans 47–8
Dreyfus and Dreyfus learning
framework 4
Driving, as a metaphor 4, 51, 118, 137
Dunleavy, Patrick 55
Editing 11, 29, 58–9, 67–9, 75–9, 85–7,
91–2, 101, 110
Hall, Edward 59
Epistemologies 39
Exploratory vs explanatory writing 43
Fencing, as a metaphor 12, 18, 28, 120
Figures 36–7, 52–5, 135
Filler words 15, 99, 101–4
First draft 41, 76–8, 87, 90, 93, 110,
138, 162
Flow 33–5, 58, 70, 75–9, 86, 90, 102,
118, 127–9
Footnotes 35–6, 40, 100, 139–40, 152–54,
30–4
Francisco Cirillo 8
Gender 22, 38–9, 80, 113
Gender, in writing 113–4, 156
Generative writing 76–9
Germanic words 16–17, 26, 60, 64
Glossary 33, 40, 134, 148–52
Grammar 2–4, 37, 72, 76, 89, 92–3, 98–9
HASS 21–3, 135, 140, 145
Hedging terms 102, 119–22, 131–2
High and low context languages 33
High School 4–5, 13, 19
High Table dinner, as a metaphor 12
Hospital, as a metaphor for the
dissertation 137–8
How to write a sentence 62
Hypotaxis 97–9
Hypothesis driven research stories 41–3
I (use of subjective pronouns) 110–1
Identity work 3
IMRAD 135–6
Induction 131
Index162 Index
Interdisciplinary 34, 38–41, 141
Introductions 14–15, 32, 43, 58, 67–9,
74, 78, 81, 92, 111, 135, 140, 151
Indigenous 26, 114–5, 156
Invasion, England 12
Jargon 2, 18–20, 64, 116–9, 152
Jigsaw puzzle, as a metaphor 43, 142, 162
Kamler and Thompson 3, 81, 145, 162
Hyland, K 22, 24–5, 27, 157–8
King, Stephen 95
Lamott, A 77
Latinate words 64, 162
LBGTIQ+ 114, 156, 162
Liam Connell 10
Literature review 22, 27, 78, 81, 91, 117–8,
105, 134–44
Literature review matrix 141–44
Logic 77–8, 86, 106–9, 122–6, 130–31
Logical argumentation 13–18, 106, 162
Manchester academic phrase bank 121
Maybe later file 100
Middle class dinner party, as a metaphor
12, 26, 48–9, 119–120
Multi–tasking 66, 91
Multidisciplinary work 30, 149, 151–2
My studious life blog 142, 158
Nominalisations 95–7
Note taking 9, 36, 76, 78, 80, 134, 138,
142–44, 144
Object 92–5
Oxbridge 12
Paragraph construction 46
Paragraph length 65
Parataxis 64, 97–9
Passive voice 89, 92–5, 109, 63
Perfect sentence vortex 90–1
Peta Freestone 10
Phrase book 40
Planning 76–9, 81–5, 91, 148
Politeness 26
Pomodoro technique 8–9, 77, 91
Posse, as a metaphor 12
POWER cycle 91
Power relations 19, 112–5, 156
PRACIS (proportionate, relevant,
analytical, Critical, informative,
synthesised) 140
Professional writing/reports 2, 4, 91
Proust 62
Quilt as metaphor 76
Race 114–5
Rachael Cayley 49, 86
Reading 4, 9, 13, 15–19, 30, 34, 37, 46, 60,
67–8, 87, 91, 98, 112, 117, 138–49
Reading, skimming 67
Red line 143
References, As talismans 12
References, As witnesses 28
Reflexive doubt 106–9
Reflexivity (with the subjective I) 110–11
Reverse Outline 59, 69, 86–91
Rewriting 87
Rhemes 70–78
Rhetorical questions 156
Scholarly 26, 60–1, 96, 102, 105–20, 140
Scholastic methods, medieval 18
Self–citation 32
Self–plagiarism 32
Sentence Clauses 15, 64–5, 98
Sentence Length 97–8
Sentences 4, 14–17, 37, 44–9, 58, 61–79,
89–95, 97–9, 110–11, 139, 143, 145
Sexism 113
Shitty first draft 77
Shut Up and Write 7–10
Signpost language 14, 49–58, 67–9, 75, 81,
102, 139, 141, 152
Snowflake outline 81–85
Spider Diagrams 79–81, 123–29
STEM 22, 135, 145–47
Strike through tool 99–100
Structure 14, 41, 44, 51–3, 58–62, 66–71,
76–8, 85–8, 93–4,134–42, 151–55
Stuffing words 102
Style 1–5, 13–16, 23–32, 35, 55, 59–62,
76–7, 101–2, 110
Sub–vocalising 98
Subject 63–6, 92–5
Subordinate clause 98–9, 130
Tables 36, 40, 52–55, 107, 135
Taglines 66–7Index 163
Tense, past and present 72, 75
Tenses, mixing 72, 74
Themes and Rhemes 78–81
Theory, in writing 20
Thesis ‘buckets’ structure 136
Thesis Boot Camp 7, 9–11, 43, 77,
91,144
Thesis Map 79–83
Time boxing 8
Tiny texts 145
Topic Sentences 14, 44–6, 65–9
Transaction costs 144
Translated material, presentation 34
Van Gelder, T 123–4
Verb Cheat Sheet 26–7
Verb Types 12, 17, 24–6
Verbs, Evaluative 24–6
Verbs, Passive Aggressive 26
Verbs, Signalling Belonging 25
vision impairment 53
Waffle 89, 121, 154
Warrants 37, 145–9
Wiradjuri 156
Wisker and Robinson 47
Word count 89, 109, 101–2
Writing productivity 8–10,
129–30
Writing Retreats 9–11
Writing Cycle 91
Zinsser, William 101
Zombie words 95–97
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