Tag Archives: academic writing

Academic Book Chapters⤴

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Every time I have an academic book chapter published I promise myself that I will never do it again, because it takes so long from first submitting an expression of interest to finally seeing it published. But then I forget, and see a call for chapters that interests me, and before I realise what I am doing I’ve committed myself to the process again.

But, on the other hand, there’s something really fulfilling about seeing the final publication and reading over what I wrote again  – not least because it’s been so long that I have actually forgotten what I wrote. So recently I was really pleased to find that I had chapters in two books published.

The first was a book about similarities and differences between disciplinary research and SoTL:

Honeychurch, S. (2025). SoTL and Disciplinary Research in Education Sciences: Collaboration, Bricolage and Remix. In: Bohndick, C., Kordts, R., Leschke, J., Vöing, N. (eds) Scholarship of Teaching and Learning und disziplinäre Forschung: Eine komplexe Beziehung. Doing Higher Education. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-47908-4_14

The second was, on the face of it, on the very different topic of Hope:

Honeychurch, S. (2025). 3. Serious fun: Reimagining Higher Education from a humane perspective. In S. Abegglen, T. Burns, R. F. Heller, R. Madhok, F. Neuhaus, J. Sandars, S. Sinfield, & U. Gitanjali Singh (Eds.), Stories of Hope (1st ed., pp. 41–48). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0462.03

As I read both chapters over I realised that both owe a lot to my remix communities in different ways. The title of the first explicitly talks about bricolage and remix, though the chapter itself discusses it in the context of an academic group who are not themselves bricoleurs. The second doesn’t mention remix in the title, but the chapter itself uses DS106 as an example of how to infuse HE with hope and fun.

When I talk to newer academics about starting out in publishing I advise them to find a golden thread – a theme that they see recurring in their work, or would like to develop. I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve found mine.

Authentic writing and academic voice⤴

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A meeting with my supervisors this week to discuss some of my work. A good meeting – they like my writing, they’re confident in my ability to finish writing up this PhD.

Then Vic speaks. He tells me that he likes my writing style, that he finds it easy to read … and I can hear the “but”  hanging in the air between us.

So is this the style of writing you are going to use for the final draft?

He asks. Or words to that effect. I say that it is, that this is my voice, and that authenticity is a value that runs throughout my thesis.

He nods. I know that he agrees with me, but that “but” still hangs in the air. I say that I’ll put something into my introduction to justify my use of my voice. He nods.

Back home, I search for “academic voice”. I find this:

We use the term academic voice to talk about distinguishing between your thoughts and words, and those of other authors.

So far, so good – I don’t want to be accused of pretending that other folks’ words are mine – I have plenty of words of my own. But how, exactly should I do that? I find this:

When writing a research paper and other academic writing (what is called academic discourse) you’ll want to use what is called the academic voice, which is meant to sound objective, authoritative, and reasonable.

No, no, no. I really do not want to use that voice. That’s not me, that’s not my thesis. This is more like my voice:

Academic voice is a formal way of writing and speaking that is clear, straightforward, and professional without sounding fancy or using unnecessarily complicated vocabulary words.

Clear – I hope so. Straightforward – that would be a goal. But what does it mean to sound professional? I suspect we’re back to that objectivity malarkey again.

It would be awful to get right to the end of this process and trip up because I’ve used the wrong voice.

But this is my voice, and it would be even worse if I stopped myself from speaking authentically.