Start writing and hope to get it right!

‘For it is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought’

(Aristotle, Rhetoric, 350 B.C.E.)
Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

During our postgraduate studies, we are encouraged to use formal prose distinct to each research community. It takes us the whole of our studies to find our academic voice and the ‘right tone’ to communicate it. This process can be facilitated by using online aids such as the academic phrasebook or purchasing one of the many addons such as REF-N-WRITE or Grammarly.

However, writing a blog post is different again. Experienced bloggers say it is liberating, but to a novice like myself, who is used to the safe and familiar ‘formal’, it is scary. This anxiety could be because there seems to be considerable confusion on what they are. Blogs are often thought of as online diaries or journals, but Prof. Dunleavy points out that this is no longer the case. He explains that they can be loosely categorised into two basic kinds: those run by a single person and those by a small group, as in this blog.

Among their many advantages, blogs are potentially powerful and immediate means of sharing ideas with an academic tone distinctive to the blogger and has its own rules. But what are those rules? How do you write creatively in a formal way that is necessary for academic blogs? There are no phrasebooks or supplements that can solve this issue. Unable to find any satisfying literature on the subject, I followed the same path as I always do:

  • Listen to the experts: Stephen King’s advises abundant reading and writing, so I have read other people’s academic blogs. My favourites are The Thesis Whisperer and Writing for Research, but there are many more and easy to find by running a website search;
  • Watch seminars by experts on blogging (while doing domestic chores such as cooking and ironing) after searching for the bloggers whose blogs I admired. For example, Professor Inger Mewburn and Dunleavy, and there are many others.

However, there is nothing left to do at a certain point but start writing and hope you get it right.

Finally, and regarding the quote by Aristotle, to write anything well, it is not enough to have something to say or even the skill with which to say it. We need to know the social norms of the community in which we find ourselves. There are no set rules in academic blogs, but I believe that the character and the language still need to be relevant. For this reason, it would be great if you could let us know your experience and beliefs concerning what they should look like and how they should feel.

Dr Lesley Fearn @lesleyfearn

I recently achieved my EdD regarding learning and teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) using online community projects in secondary schools. This interest stems from more than thirty years of experience teaching English (as a Foreign Language) and English literature in state schools in the south of Italy. During this time, I have continually experimented with new approaches and techniques, especially with technology, to motivate students in their schooling. Other areas of interest include Fine Art and English literature that I studied as a BA and MA. As far as research is concerned, I am particularly interested in Action Research and sociocultural paradigms.