Effective Strategies for Academic Writing

Writing a proper scientific text is not an easy job. Academic reality is complex, and text requirements differ per discipline and per writing task. Then there is your research, the basis for your text, which also demands attention.

Effective Strategies for Academic Writing shines a spotlight on the mechanisms of academic thinking, academic writing, and academic texts. It helps academic writers successfully complete their writing tasks. The author discusses strategies for small writing assignments like papers and essays and for more complex texts such as journal articles and BA/MA/PhD theses. That means the book can be useful throughout an academic career.

The organization of the book mirrors the phases of an academic writing process: task orientation, making a plan, and writing. Efficient reading and effective use of feedback are also covered. The author describes all the steps that need to be taken to produce a good final product. The accompanying website provides additional theory, extra examples, and lots of helpful forms to work out the various steps. It also contains references to useful websites and books.

The steps and examples are taken from many scientific disciplines and can be used for various kinds of writing tasks. They make Effective Strategies for Academic Writing an instructional and accessible book suitable for all academic writers.

Joy de Jong was coordinator of the Nijmegen Centre for Academic Writing from 2007 until 2016, when she moved to Utrecht University to manage their Skills Lab. She wrote her PhD thesis on thesis supervision meetings, and for over twenty-five years, she has developed and taught courses and led workshops on academic writing and its supervision. She is a member and co-founder of the Dutch Network for Academic Communicative Skills (NACV).