This book is based on the assumption that the writing skills you learned in
school –which is when most people seem to learn most about writing –do
not equip you for your entire career. This is to say that we can all develop
our writing skills throughout our careers, and that writing development –or
whatever you want to call it –is not remedial; far from it.
When we come to the subject of writing for academic journals, there are
other problematic misconceptions:
You cannot write for academic journals until you have immersed yourself in the
literature.
You cannot write for academic journals if you have not done any research.
These and other widely accepted conceptions about writing for academic
journals have, of course, an element of truth in them; you do have to know the
literature, and you do have to contextualize your contribution in terms of the
other work that has been done.
However, ‘immersing yourself’in the literature is itself a long-term process.
If you wait until you feel you have achieved that, you may never write. If you
wait until you have found your place in the literature, you may lose the creative spark, the germ of your own idea and your commitment to write. In
reality, it is the process of publishing a paper that helps you to establish your
place in the literature. Writing is one way of deepening your understanding of
the literature.