Most of the research which investigates writing in university contexts focusses on student writing, and the social practices of writing as part of student learning. In this seminar we present selected findings from our research project (see http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/acadswriting/), which examines the writing of academics in three English universities. We have spent the last 18 months working closely with academics across different departments, universities, and disciplines, and used repeated interviews and observations of writing processes to explore their cultures of professional writing. Specifically for this seminar, we focus on elements of our data where our academic participants recall how they became acquainted with the demands and conventions of their professional writing; in short, how they learned to write as academics. We outline the management of ongoing and ‘on the job’ learning to write, new challenges of collaboration and digitisation, developing strategies to cope with changes, and mastering an increasing diversity of genres and text-types. We hope that this seminar will stimulate an important discussion about the choices academics make about their writing, and the most appropriate ways of approaching professional development for academics, both at the early career stage and throughout their professional lives.

1. Department of Educational Research
9th Nov 2016
Learning to write as an academic
Ibrar Bhatt
Karin Tusting
#acadswriting

2. Universities today
 Writing is at the heart of academic labour
 Universities are changing within the context of an
international, competitive knowledge-based economy (Sum
and Jessop 2013) from which emerge new, competing
versions of “knowledge” – new producers and audiences
 Transformations in the HE workplace have lead to changes in
the work, responsibilities and identities of academics which
can be tracked through their writing practices.

3.  Transformations in managerial practices in universities
 Accountability and audit (Strathern 2000)
 Intensification of work and job flexibility/insecurity
 Changing resources – working within changed
time/space – new digital tools (Goodfellow and Lea 2013)
 Facilitating distance and blended learning and collaboration
(Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), video
conferencing,
 changing nature of scholarship – the ‘digital scholar’ -
online library resources,(Weller 2011);
 mobilities - smartphones and portable devices

4.  To be accountable to standards which change the
nature of academic work.
 To publish in strategic ways which can conflict with
disciplinary norms and established practices.
 To respond to new demands around impact, public
engagement, open access.
 To engage in social media and maintain public online
persona.
 To use new technological platforms eg VLEs which
take time to learn.
Changes in the demands and resources of the academic
workplace lead to tensions and pressures:

5. Focus of today’s talk
 In this rapidly changing environment, how do
academics learn the many different kinds of
writing practices which they engage in every
day?
 Different kinds of writing practices
 Various approaches to learning writing
 Some common patterns

6. Dynamics of Knowledge Creation: Academics
writing in the contemporary university
workplace
Project team: Karin Tusting (PI),
David Barton, Ibrar Bhatt, Mary
Hamilton, Sharon McCulloch
Literacy Research Centre, Lancaster University
Departments of Linguistics and of Educational Research
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council UK

7. Theoretical perspectives
 A literacy practices approach: researching what people
are doing, not what they ‘should’ be doing or what skills
they should have (Barton 2007; Hamilton 2012; Tusting
2012).
 A sociomaterial perspective: researching how people’s
writing practices are shaped by social and material tools
and contexts, resources including the digital (Fenwick
et al 2011; Orlikowski 2007; Callon 2002)

8. Research design: numbers of
interviews

9. We are here
Phase 1:
working with
individuals
• Interviews with
individuals about
their work
practices,
technobiographies,
and typical days’
practices
Phase 2: detailed
study of writing
processes
• Recording the
detail of writing
processes using
screen capture,
digital pens,
keyboard tracking,
informed by
interviews
Phase 3:
understanding
the community
• Interviews with
managers,
administrative
staff, colleagues
and collaborators

10. Distribution of writing activities
Teaching
ResearchAdmin
Service

11. Article
proposal
Book proposal
Research
proposal
Grant
applications
Ethics forms
Communication
with research
participants
Coding
Field notes
Transcription
Outputs:
Journal article
Systematic review
Book
Chapter
Edited collection
Conference paper
Report
Policy Paper
Newsletter
Media/newspaper
article
Thesis
Poem
Software
Summary
Film script
Genres of research
writing

12. Learning research writing
Learning by doing PhD
I remember when I did my PhD I was really
chuffed with myself. “I’ve written that first
complete chapter.” It was part of the
literature I was reading. I sent it to [my
supervisor]. … He’s, “Mmm. It’s a bit
flowery.” Then I read it and I was like,
“Jesus Christ. It’s like a Mills & Boon novel.”
(Charles, Marketing)

13. Learning research writing
Learning by doing PhD
My PhD supervisor told me, “You can’t write.
You can’t write.” I was really upset and
really worried … Then I had conversations
with Dan who has been really important in
my intellectual development. Dan thinks like
me. Dan said to me, “Writing is
understanding.” He said, “Start writing it
because the writing is the knowing. It’s not
separate.” (Diane, Marketing)

14. Learning research writing
Learning from others
I haven't had any formal training. What I've
done is work with people who are more
intelligent and more capable than me, more
experienced than me and worked with them
and learnt from them. So it's more been an
apprenticeship rather than a formal sit in a
classroom type thing.
(Mark, Marketing)

15. Learning research writing
Learning from expertise
It’s nice to be able to work with people who maybe
are more experienced, intellectually, down the line
so they can guide the way. There’s a guidance and
a learning of what works.
(Gareth, Mathematician)
I've only written a couple of articles with co-
authors, both of which were fun to do […] in one
case, I learnt a great deal from a super smart
colleague.
(Colin, Historian)

16. Learning research writing
Learning from feedback – evaluative and
collaborative
The training that I’ve had has come through the
peer review process.
(Diane, Marketing)
The thing I really enjoy is when I send that paper
off to another co-author and they say, ‘That’s
great’. That’s that point where you’re learning.
(Charles, Marketing)

17. Learning research writing
Learning to network – meeting people, finding mentors
I will write a paper. It will go to Tim. He will take it apart,
[Laughter] tell me there’s a million things that could be better.
I will then rewrite it. It will then go back to Tim.
It’s still very much that I write the paper from end-to-end and
then the collaborators take it and criticise it. Telling me that
all my work is crap is certainly how it feels.
But I have just met at a conference two other women actually,
as it happens, who are at the very same career stage as me.
There is a special issue that we’ve decided to try and pull a
paper together on. We seemed to come from a similar point of
view.
(Emma, Marketing)

18. Learning research writing
 Learning by doing
It’s the practice of it. The more you do it, the better you
get at it. (Diane, Marketing)
By collaborating with people who had the craft, by talking
to people who are successful, by trying my own things, by
failing in quite a few others and by learning where to direct
my energies, by looking at different styles of writing,
different journals, different communities and so on. That
was my training. There was nothing formal about it, it was
very much like how you learn any other craft.
(Michael, Marketing)

19. Learning research writing
 Learning how to learn by doing
I’ve done a few writing retreats which are very
much about learning the discipline of writing and
keeping, this American colleague of ours says,
“Keeping your fanny on the chair.” … You do 90
minutes. When you’ve finished 90 minutes, even if
you spend the last few minutes writing the next
three bullet points, you do not get off your chair
until you’ve finished the 90 minutes and then you
have a break. I found that very, very productive.
That was an important part of my training, keep my
bum on the seat. (Diane, Marketing)

20. Teaching
Course
proposal
Course
handbook
Course
description
Setting
assignments
and exams
Course notes
Lecture scripts
Handouts
Lecture slides
Blackboard
scribbles
Feedback to
students
Exams

21. Learning writing for teaching
Learning by doing
I sit there and I look at what I've written and what
I've put together and I try and put myself in the
position of somebody that doesn't know the area.
And it's trying to get that activity so self-
explanatory on the sheets or on the handout or on
the PowerPoint that I won't have like 20 or 30
different people asking me what the hell does it
mean.
(Josh, Education)

22. Learning writing for teaching
Learning from students
Because I'm sort of new to the game, and I'm also
new to online courses, a lot of our teaching is done
through the VLE, it is very much at the moment
learning as I'm going on. So I'm quite responsive to
what the students are saying.
(Josh, Education)

23. Administrative writing
Institutional
Agendas and Minutes
Notes
Budgets
Comments on student
applications
Database
Departmental documents
Letter
Explanation of procedures
Job announcement
REF documentation
Personal
Expenses claim
To do list
PDR
Personal reflections
Rough notes

24. Service
Book review
Review for a journal
Proposal for a new
journal
Survey response
Forum discussion
Guest speaker request
Opinion piece
External examining
report
Reference letter

25. Learning administrative writing
Learning by experience
When I became a head of department, I wanted to
do the job because I had various ideas about how
to take the department in certain directions and
how to manage people, but I had no formal training
for that and, to be honest, very little administrative
support. So it was a bit of a roller coaster time, and
I feel I achieved certain things, but they were more
by dint of learning on the job than by anything that
counted as ‘training’.
(Colin, Historian)

26. Learning administrative writing
Weaknesses of formal training
When I became HoD, the university runs a type of
training course for HoDs. I went to all of the
aspects of that. I thought the university didn’t
quite get it right, because it focused on the
university’s specific processes and logistics of how
things happen rather than how to manage people.
They promised that they were going to run various
things like how to manage people courses, but they
never put them on (Gareth, Maths)

27. Learning administrative writing
People developed their own meta-logistical systems and
strategies
[Interviewer had asked about to-do lists:] Post-Its,
which I go through every day and I have a much
longer-term to-do list thingy and then I have one for
the day or for the week, so several to-do lists, which
I need to keep on my mind. Then, I often have a
couple of things I really want to get done that day as
well, sometimes, they are actually just physically in
my very old-fashioned paper diary, where I have
meetings, but also in pencil, things that I really want
to do, in between the official meetings and so on.
(Juliette, Social Sciences)

28. Learning administrative writing
 Learning email strategies (or not)
Just before Christmas I had 596 emails […] 596 unread, at
least. I have 14,000 total […] I went into the unread items
and I pressed control A and then I deleted them all, and
they all went. So rather than having 596 I had none in my
inbox and I felt brilliant. And you know what, this is the
scary bit, nothing happened.[…] So, a few people come
back to me, work on that, but I work on the premise that if
they’re not going to come back again then fine. So now I
try and keep to one day a week where I can just manage
emails. I’m getting about 60 to 80 a day. (Charles,
Marketing)

29. I think, in terms of presenting yourself to the
media, in some ways I think training is very
valuable.
(Gareth, Mathematician)
The problem is that the people who generally drum
up policies are pretty clueless on the whole world of
social media. So I think they sort of left it to
academic judgement.
(Mark, Marketing)
Learning new genres: Social media
and public engagement

30. They are useful to form a brand awareness ... As in
the brand of my department, and my brand. And
when the day dawns that I have anything
published, it will be all over Twitter. When the day
dawns that I have time to write a blog, when I feel
suitably informed to talk about stuff… I feel at the
minute that it’s all still a bit new. I haven’t done
anything for long enough to really call myself an
expert in it. So it would just be my opinions that
were in a blog. So why would I write them?
(Emma, Marketer)
Learning new genres: social media

31. Key themes
 Learning from others – relationships,
collaboration and feedback – and learning
to set up networks for support and
mentoring
 Learning by doing - importance of
autonomous, self-directed learning, and
how to support this
 Weaknesses or lacks of formal training
To learn writing, you have to sort of sit
there and do it yourself. (Diane, Marketing)

32. Discussion
 How can academics best be supported in
ongoing learning?
 What’s the role of ongoing formal
training?
 Are early career staff well-prepared for
the diversity and autonomy of academic
work?
#acadswriting

33. We are currently
collecting data for
Phase 3.
To follow the
project’s progress:
Blog at
http://wp.lancs.
ac.uk/acadswriting/