Happy First of May, student academic. Thank you again for being a part of the CHI Paper Writing Course , a writing center or a learning center for thoughts and ideas, and tips to help improve your writing abilities. And if you are presenting your academic paper at CHI 2022 this year, welcome to the conference. Beginning today, I will send you an email once a month with writing tips and updates from the world of academic writing skills. (BTW, if you're struggling with more than just grammar and punctuation, get my free thesis statement guide to help you improve your writing skills, get your dissertation published, and keep academic integrity).

A six-step framework to help you master academic writing

Here is a professional academic writing framework of six steps in any writing process that goes beyond any particular topic, use of language, and critical thinking skills that are essential to getting scholarly articles into academic journals:

Master academic writing essential skills with this structure

1. Choose a topic or a research question. Before you begin writing, you will need to select a topic or some ideas of what to write about. For a research paper, the initial moment is often your research question. Academic writing requires one. For any piece of writing, the research question is tied to addressing a problem that matters to you and hopefully other academics.
2. Gather ideas. When you have a topic or find a research question, think about what you will need to write about that topic. When writing a research paper, we often engage in length and depth with ideas and arguments in related work to find out two things: (1) how have people solved similar problems or questions and (2) why do they think it matters to your research field or your types of research? Spend some time exploring your field and refining your research question before you begin organizing your thoughts and present them in a clear manner. Every academic needs a clear thesis statement. Writing effectively and concisely enables students' success in higher education.
3. Organize. Part of this is just writer's time management. But decide specifically which of the ideas for solving the research problem you want to use and how you want to use them. Students struggle with academic writing but most research papers follow a tight template of introduction, related work, methods, results, discussion, limitations, and future work with some variation of these common types. So, for your next paper, these bins help you identify how to fit your writing to meet the content of these sections. Do you have an idea for framing? Consider putting a bullet point in the introduction or discussion.
4. Write. Write your paper from start to finish. Write it rough, make mistakes, and don't edit it. Don't worry about writing styles. Worry about how to provide valuable insights that help you develop or make you able to explain you ideas. To achieve your goals to answer the research question. Ideally, use bullet points in each section to expand. Use your notes from step 2.
5. Review structure and content. Now, inspect what you have written. Use online resources used by writers. Tools that let you edit and proofread your writing and spot errors in grammar. Read your writing aloud to yourself or others. This is the best way to find awkward spots. Identify spots where you can add more information, and check if you have any unnecessary information. Discuss with peers. Ideally, find a writing community where they read your article, and you read their article. Getting your peers' feedback is an excellent way to know if your writing is clear and compelling. Learning to give feedback about other people's writing helps you improve your own. You may want to go on to step six now and revise the structure and content of your article before you correct it.
6. Revise structure and content. Use the feedback from step five as guidance to help rewrite your article, improving the structure and content. You might need to explain something more clearly or add more details. Proofread. Other papers can help. Reread your article. Check your spelling and grammar when rereading the article, and think about your word choices. Are they adequate to communicate what you want to share? Once all errors are corrected, your article is finished. Then just check your references (to avoid plagiarism), maybe they are in American Psychological Association (APA) style. Either way, for online academic writing, you want to link citations to your references.

What type of proficient academic writer are you?

That's it. Academic writing is a skill. This framework applies to most writing, and I first found it in a book from Zemach and Rumisek about academic writing and have adjusted it since for my article writing process. Writing is one aspect of academic writing. Essential for success in higher education and university study. But you also want to enable students to write words that might sound formal and objective but really help them express their ideas, enable valuable insights, and use evidence to support their argumentation. Use these resources to help you write better and put your ideas in a clear system that meets the writing demands of your next publication. It is a great way to get started.

Structure of academic writing work

An good writer can be divided into three different types based on aspects of their academic writing approach and experience. Some key types are:

1. The beginner writer. This writer is just starting out in academic writing and may be unsure of the conventions and expectations of this genre.
2. The experienced writer. This writer has published several papers and is familiar with the academic writing process.
3. The expert writer. This writer is a leader in their field and serves as a mentor to newer academic writers.

And regardless of your type, by following this 6-step framework, you can continually improve your academic writing skills. But it's important to understand the unique challenges each type of writer faces. Therefore, I hope these tips and resources will be helpful as you continue to build your academic writing skills.

Resources are available for academic careers and types of academic writing

If you enjoy this newsletter and feel generous today, the best way you could support me would be to share it with people online. And don't forget to check out my free thesis statement guide. Have an excellent CHI conference. Until next month.

For other types of academic writing...