{"id":60502,"date":"2021-12-01T06:04:10","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T11:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=60502"},"modified":"2021-12-01T06:04:10","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T11:04:10","slug":"writing-as-an-imaginary-conversation-with-your-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/writing-as-an-imaginary-conversation-with-your-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing as an imaginary conversation with your reader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/imaginary-conversation.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"380\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-60540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/imaginary-conversation.png 680w, https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/imaginary-conversation-250x140.png 250w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><br \/>\nIt\u2019s the end of #acwrimo!!<\/p>\n<p>Did you take part in<a href=\"https:\/\/acwrimo.com\/\">\u00a0Academic Writing Month<\/a>\u00a0this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/services.anu.edu.au\/news-events\/anu-acwrimo-academic-writing-month-2021\">we made a big deal of it at ANU<\/a>. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. You can see some of the workshops I ran on my\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thesiswhisperer.com\/workshops-and-training\/\">Workshops page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This post supports one of the last workshops I ran:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1jb9O8u9YW0Ww1eBifnrd_z8QpWMxTOFYm3J9g5HG8Gg\/edit?usp=sharing\">How to write a powerful paragraph<\/a>. I didn\u2019t have enough coffee that morning and made a bit of a hash of explaining some of the concepts. Most of the students were a bit\u2026<\/p>\n<p>So, let\u2019s talk about structure, hopefully without the confusion!<\/p>\n<p>Academic writing is structured at two levels: subheadings and paragraphs. The subheadings in a short article are easy to generate. Here are two basic academic paper structures, which Katherine Firth, Shaun Lehmann and I explained in our book\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thewhispercollective.net\/books-and-merch\/\"><em>How to fix your academic writing trouble.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A basic science paper structure:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0locate the work in a broader context, focus on the specific problem, anchor in the literature, report what you did, argue for the significance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Introduction:<\/strong>\u00a0Tell the reader why the work needs to be done in the context of what others have done. It\u2019s a combination of sales pitch and literature review, with an emphasis on the review.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Method:<\/strong>\u00a0What you did so that someone can easily replicate it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Results:<\/strong>\u00a0Tables and figures with narration \u2013 can be broken into different segments to help the reader navigate through the text.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Discussion:<\/strong>\u00a0Where you tell us what the results mean, usually the context of other work that has been done.\u2019<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong>\u00a0Where you return to the significance and suggest other areas of the work that could be explored further.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The humanities make similar moves in papers, but with a different emphasis:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0locate the work in a broader context, focus on the specific problem, anchor in the literature, report what you did, argue for the significance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Introduction:<\/strong>\u00a0Tell the reader why the work needs to be done in the context of what selected others have done (your selection matters). It\u2019s a combination of sales pitch and literature review, with an emphasis on the sales pitch. Tell the reader what you intend to argue.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Methodology:<\/strong>\u00a0Either what data you collected, how and why or what specific materials or writers\/thinkers you are critiquing. What rationale there was for using that approach.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Themes:<\/strong>\u00a0A series of subheadings that break the paper up for the reader into useful \u2018idea chunks\u2019. These sections should clearly build a case, or relate to each other in some logical way.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Summary analysis:<\/strong>\u00a0Where you draw together all the themes you have discussed and make a case for the overall argument you set out in the introduction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A science dissertation might be three or four (or more) versions of this basic paper structure, titled chapters, which are top and tailed with a big introduction at the start and a conclusion at the end.<\/p>\n<p>A humanities dissertation is often this same basic paper structure, but all the sections are much bigger and there\u2019s more themes in the middle. Creative research practice can depart radically from both of these formulas \u2013 usually consisting of an exegesis with a bridging essay. But the bridging essay often resembles the humanities form.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s zoom in closer. A subheading has one or more paragraphs under it. The number of paragraphs in each subsection is up to you. I don\u2019t want to be the paragraph police (well, maybe I do), but I like subsections in a dissertation to be no longer than 3 pages. Unless you happen to be my student, feel free to ignore me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paragraphs group similar concepts and ideas together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Each paragraph is step in your overall argument, helping you walk your reader through your propositions in logical order.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to say soothing stuff like this, but in practice, you\u2019re probably trying to wrangle paragraphs out of a big old mess of ideas, data, bits of analysis, quotes from other people \u2013 and your own critical judgements. Organising this mess into neat paragraphs is like trying to put a jigsaw together without the benefit of a picture on the front of the box. Seasoned academics have their own strategies for dealing with the writing-jigsaw problem. Although calling them \u2018strategies\u2019 is probably a bit fancy.<\/p>\n<p>They are more like\u2026 hacks.<\/p>\n<p>My favourite academic writing hack is to write the first sentence of as many paragraphs as I can think of, and assemble them as a big list to see if the story makes sense. Then I sort the big pile of writing stuff as dot point lists, under each sentence, where they seem to fit. Then I start writing, free form, under each first sentence, including things from the dot point list as I go.<\/p>\n<p>The sentences at the start of paragraphs come in a variety of flavours.<\/p>\n<p>Paragraphs in the introduction will often start with sentences that summarise the literature or what we already know. Paragraphs in the conclusion will often start with summaries of the arguments you made in the rest of the paper. Paragraphs in the results and discussion\/theme sections are trickier, but they tend to start with\u00a0<em>knowledge claims<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knowledge claims are assertions that can be supported with very particular kinds of evidence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Academics are fairly picky about the evidence they will accept so, it\u2019s not a good idea to start a paragraph in the middle of your paper with a statement like:<\/p>\n<p><em>The sky is blue.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This statement is an assertion, but it is not a defensible knowledge claim. As I look outside the window right now, the sky is kind of grey with patches of blue. So I could modify my sentence:<\/p>\n<p><em>The sky is blue, except when there are clouds.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Still not a good knowledge claim because it\u2019s so easy to disprove \u2013 the sky is sometimes black, at night, or orange, at sunrise and sunset. Do I\u00a0<em>know<\/em>\u00a0the sky is blue, or do I just\u00a0<em>perceive<\/em>\u00a0it as blue? The verb \u2018is\u2019 denotes \u2018existence\u2019; the verb \u2018perceives\u2019 is about how we experience sensory input. In other words, the sky only looks blue \u2013 sometimes. There\u2019s a literature on human sensory systems I can draw on to support a claim about perception. Let\u2019s modify the knowledge claim again so it\u2019s more defensible:<\/p>\n<p><em>For humans, most of the time, the sky appears blue.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Better \u2013 it\u2019s a much more tentative claim, but I can offer reasons and evidence to explain why people see the sky as blue. If I can pile up enough of these, a reader should accept my assertion \u2013 which is really all you are trying to do in academic writing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now for the messy bit: how to arrange a paragraph to support a knowledge claim.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Novice and undergraduate writers are offered a couple of formulas to help compose paragraphs. These are fairly recent pedagogical innovations, so I\u2019ve never used them. My son actually taught me these two when he was in high school:<\/p>\n<p>TEXAS: Topic sentence, example, explanation, analysis, \u2018so what\u2019<\/p>\n<p>TEEL: Topic sentence, Explanation, Evidence, and Link<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t find these formulas particularly helpful because they tend to produce formulaic, repetitive writing. At an undergraduate level formulaic is fine, but at the PhD level you have to step it up.<\/p>\n<p>My academic writing life was transformed in 2006, early in my PhD, when I saw this handy diagram in the evergreen classic\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/C\/bo23521678.html\">The craft of research: by Booth et. al.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>In case you can\u2019t read that image properly, the diagram is a basic \u2018kit of parts\u2019 for a paragraph of argumentative writing. There is a \u2018chain\u2019 of linked statements at the top:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>I claim that\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Because of these reasons\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Which I base on this evidence\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Underpinning this three part chain is a form of writing Booth et.al. call \u2018Acknowledgement and response\u2019. Basically, your paragraphs should be peppered with sentences that show you anticipate the reader\u2019s questions, objections, and alternatives to what you are asserting \u2013 and have an answer. As Booth et. al. put it:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201c\u2026 if you plan your argument only around claims, reasons, and evidence, your readers may think your argument is not only thin but, worse, ignorant or dismissive of their views. You must respond to their predictable questions and objections.\u201d*<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When you think about it this way, writing a paragraph is really just having an imaginary, one sided conversation with your reader where you ask yourself:\u00a0<em>what does my reader need to hear to accept what I am saying is true?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you analyse texts closely, you\u2019ll see really good academic writers often leave out the main argument chain, or jumble up the order \u2013 all the time. But they never leave out the imagined conversation with the reader.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easier to see what I mean in practice. Here\u2019s a paragraph from one of my personal favourite papers:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/228816715_%27It%27s_a_PhD_not_a_Nobel_Prize%27_How_experienced_examiners_assess_research_theses\">\u2018It\u2019s a PhD, not a Nobel Prize: how experienced examiners assess research theses\u2019<\/a>\u00a0by Gerry Mullins and Margaret Kiley (my link is to researchgate, which is the closest I can give you to open access. Go ahead, read it \u2013 I\u2019ll wait).<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s everything under the subheading\u00a0<em>Experienced Examiners Expect the Thesis to Pass<\/em>\u00a0on page 376:<\/p>\n<p>Of even more comfort to postgraduate students is the reluctance of examiners to fail a thesis\u00a0<strong>(knowledge claim)<\/strong>. From our 30 experienced examiners (who had examined more than 300 theses over the last 10\u201315 years), there were only 10 reports of a failed thesis\u00a0<strong>(evidence)<\/strong>. There are several reasons given for this reluctance<strong>\u00a0(anticipating and addressing the reader\u2019s implicit question: why so few failed theses?)<\/strong>. Primarily, it is the\u00a0 examiners\u2019\u00a0 realisation\u00a0 that the thesis\u00a0 represents three\u00a0 to four years of effort by a talented student, and that its production\u00a0 has\u00a0 been\u00a0 an\u00a0 expensive process in terms of resources and other people\u2019s time\u00a0<strong>(answer to the implicit question)<\/strong>: \u2018If the student is any good and the supervisor any good then\u00a0 you shouldn\u2019t\u00a0 fail a\u00a0 PhD. There\u00a0 should be\u00a0 enough\u00a0 \u201cnous\u201d\u00a0 around to guide the student in a way that he\/she wouldn\u2019t fail\u2019 (Sc\/Male\/10).\u00a0<strong>(evidence supporting the answer).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another reason examiners will do everything they possibly can to avoid failing a thesis, or asking for a substantial rewrite\u00a0<strong>(anticipating and addressing the reader\u2019s implicit question: are there other reasons for the low failure rate?)<\/strong>, is that they realise that this will require a substantial amount of work for the examiner, the student and often the supervisor\u00a0<strong>(answer to the implicit question)<\/strong>: \u2018A poor thesis causes me sleepless nights as I know how much work and effort is involved\u2019 (Hum\/Female\/6).\u00a0<strong>(evidence)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mullins and Kiley can play fast and loose with the standard components of an argument because, in the methods section, they give enough information to assure their reader that the knowledge claims are valid. When they share results of their survey, they\u00a0<em>assume the reader is more interested in what the claims mean in practice<\/em>, not how valid they are. I could quibble about the use of two paragraphs \u2013 I would have put all that in one \u2013 but that\u2019s just a style thing really.<\/p>\n<p>Try using this analysis technique on a piece of writing you enjoy. It might surprise you how much you can get away with, so long as you treat your reader as a thinking, feeling human being. All writing is a social act. Expert to expert communication, which is the essence of writing at PhD level and above, requires a good imagination and a certain degree of confidence to depart from rigid formulas when necessary.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this short explainer helped you \u2013 it helped me to write it. Next time I run that session I will just send people this post, instead of trying to explain it on the run!<\/p>\n<p>I usually take January off Thesis Whisperering, but I will bring you a new year\u2019s post in early 2022, complete with a book version of all the posts from this year as my annual fund raiser for UN Women. For those who celebrate, I hope your Christmas is peaceful and full of good times with friends and family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the end of #acwrimo!! Did you take part in\u00a0Academic Writing Month\u00a0this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year\u00a0we made a big deal of it at ANU. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. You can see some of the workshops I ran on my\u00a0Workshops [&hellip;]\n&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/writing-as-an-imaginary-conversation-with-your-reader\/\" class=\"more\">learn more&rarr;<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[8148],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-60502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-writing-3"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Writing as an imaginary conversation with your reader - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/writing-as-an-imaginary-conversation-with-your-reader\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Writing as an imaginary conversation with your reader - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s the end of #acwrimo!! Did you take part in\u00a0Academic Writing Month\u00a0this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year\u00a0we made a big deal of it at ANU. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. 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Did you take part in\u00a0Academic Writing Month\u00a0this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year\u00a0we made a big deal of it at ANU. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. 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