For academics, writing for an academic audience is an unavoidable skill. It requires attention to detail and a commitment to presenting well-supported ideas clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CARISCA held a workshop for faculty and students in October focused on writing for an academic audience. The facilitator, CARISCA Director Nathaniel Boso, took participants through a clinical session at the workshop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWriting is an art that needs to be practiced and improved upon, and it is hard work,\u201d said Boso. \u201cIt gets harder, especially when you are writing for an academic audience in multiple cultural contexts.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal of the workshop, part of the CARISCA Training Series, was to give students tips for getting research papers into high-quality international journals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boso shared the following writing tips:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your writing should be understandable.<\/strong> \u201cWriting for an academic audience requires your ability to enhance readability,\u201d said Boso. Writing is understandable to the extent that its meaning is easily and quickly comprehended for an intended purpose by an intended reader, he explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider the organization and argumentation of your work.<\/strong> Sentence construction<\/strong> Writing sentences in the correct grammatical word order makes it easier for your audience to read and comprehend. Here\u2019s what you need to consider in writing your sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wordiness and clarity of style<\/strong> Use the correct spelling and avoid using British or American English interchangeably. \u201cWrite in the language that best suits your audience,\u201d Boso said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Always proofread your work for clarity and consistency before you hand it in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dealing with complex sentences<\/strong> Boso also gave participants, who were mostly PhD students, tips for building the basic structure of a manuscript prior to submission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the presentation, participants practiced what they learned at the workshop by applying the tips in their own research papers. Senior academics from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Arizona State University provided feedback on the participants\u2019 work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For academics, writing for an academic audience is an unavoidable skill. It requires attention to detail and a commitment to presenting well-supported ideas clearly. CARISCA held a workshop for faculty and students in October focused on writing for an academic audience. The facilitator, CARISCA Director Nathaniel Boso, took participants through a clinical session at the … <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[330,317],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/CARISCA-Training-Series-2-600x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/CARISCA-Training-Series-2-600x400.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Barby Grant","author_link":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/author\/idbag\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/CARISCA-Training-Series-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3423,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396\/revisions\/3423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wpcarey.asu.edu\/carisca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Writing should convey your message to your audience. It should make sense to the reader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The organization of your work contributes to capturing the interest and attention of your audience. Using the appropriate spaces and paragraphs creates coherent units of meaning. Academic readers want unity in what they read. Take the time to ensure that your paper\u2019s focus is consistent from beginning to end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour sentences have to be intriguing and keep the reader on their toes,\u201d said Boso. \u201cYou have got to give a reason for the reader to continue reading.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Editing for clarity is your obligation as an author. Make sure your sentences are in the active voice, which is easier to understand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sentences become difficult to understand when they are long or overly complex. Try to construct sentences containing no more than 20 words. Long sentences\u2014those with 35 to 40 words\u2014can be difficult to comprehend, said Boso. On average, a paragraph of 150 words is considered ideal for scientific writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n