Writing for the Academic Press

It is a topic that many journalism students don’t get a chance to investigate. Other than completing research papers for a college class, few writers get the background and the knowhow to be a successful academic writer. By academic writing, I am including writing and editing textbooks, researching and writing articles for professional journals, and writing research papers for presentations at conferences.

The style of academic writing is by necessity, more concise and needs to show independent and documented research and allows the reader to be able to draw the appropriate conclusions.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing for journals or textbook chapters.

1)   The writing should be formal and logical.

2)   The narrative needs to define, support, and follow your thesis or argument.

3)   Work needs to be unbiased.

4)   Paragraphs need to be unbiased

5)   Writing needs to be well structured

6)   Work should contain proper citations and sources must be acknowledged. The Internet makes it too easy to obtain information and write it as your own.

7)   Work should be written in the passive voice.

8)   The author needs to always keep in mind who the intended audience is.

9)   The reader should have no problem identifying your position.

10)                   Refer to the AP Style Manual when needed.

It is always a good idea to have at least two other individuals review your work and to critique content and style.

c. 2016 J. Margolis