Welcome to the final part of our four-part series on the traits that define successful, sustainable academic writers. In previous episodes, we’ve covered how these writers manage their time, build a strong writer’s identity, and make writing their first priority. Today, we’ll focus on the fourth and final characteristic: the constant improvement of writing skills.
Writing is a journey, not a destination. Even the most accomplished writers continue to refine their craft, seeking new ways to improve, and this pursuit of improvement is a hallmark of great academic writers. It’s what keeps them engaged, productive, and at the top of their game throughout their careers.
Writing Is a Constant Endeavour
Successful academic writers never stop working on their craft. They recognise that no matter how skilled they are, there’s always room for growth. Writing isn’t something that’s mastered and then forgotten. It’s a practice that requires consistent attention and a willingness to improve. Even senior academics, who have published extensively and are experts in their field, continue to work on enhancing their writing skills. This constant improvement is essential to keeping their work relevant and impactful. The best writers invest time—and money—into refining their writing techniques, ensuring that every piece they write is an opportunity to grow.
Technical Skill Development
One of the main ways successful writers improve is by honing their technical writing skills. This means paying attention to the details of writing—sentence structure, turn of phrase, and how ideas are communicated. Great academic writers spend time reflecting on the execution of their writing, always asking: "How well did I communicate the ideas I had in my head?"
They may seek out writing coaches, read books on writing, or imitate the styles of writers they admire. But regardless of the method, they’re always striving to improve how they convey their ideas. Writing isn’t just about putting words on paper; it’s about conveying complex thoughts clearly and effectively. Successful academic writers never stop striving to get better at this.
Managing Your Academic Career to Create Space for Writing
To truly improve your writing, you need to ensure that your career supports it. Writing doesn’t happen in isolation; it requires an environment that fosters focus and creativity. Successful writers strategically manage their careers to create time and space for writing.
This might mean carefully choosing the projects they take on or working with mentors to help guide their career choices. For example, they may select projects that push their writing boundaries, such as writing in different genres regularly, moving from journal articles to public consultation papers, to grants, to monographs, which require different skill sets. By engaging in diverse writing genres, they continue to develop their writing technique. Each new type of writing—whether it’s a blog post, a policy document, or a book—forces them to refine their approach and deepen their skills.
Improving Thinking and Ideation
Great writing starts with great thinking. If you don’t take the time to properly ideate and plan your work, the writing process will be much more difficult. Writers who are committed to improvement spend time at the beginning of a project thinking deeply about their ideas. The clearer they are about what they want to say, the easier it will be to write effectively.
Poor ideation often leads to overcomplicated writing, where ideas are not fully formed, and sentences feel forced. On the other hand, clear thinking at the start of the writing process leads to sharper, more concise writing. When the ideas are well developed, the execution of the writing becomes much easier, and less time is spent rewriting and editing.
Collaboration and Learning from Others
Another way to improve writing skills is through collaboration. Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. In fact, collaborating with others can significantly enhance your writing by exposing you to new perspectives and techniques. Collaborations give you the chance to see how others approach writing, and you can learn from their strategies, sentence structures, and the way they express ideas. The key to benefiting from collaboration is internalising the lessons learned. Successful writers don’t just rely on their collaborators for one-off projects; they take these lessons to heart and apply them to their own writing. By reflecting on the strengths of others, they continue to evolve their own style and approach.
The Power of Reading: Expanding Your Language and Technique
To become a better writer, you must be a voracious reader. Successful academic writers read widely, not only academic work but also fiction, non-fiction, and books about writing. Reading is crucial because it exposes you to a wide range of writing styles, vocabularies, and techniques. The act of reading deeply exercises your brain’s ability to concentrate and focus, which in turn makes the writing process easier. But perhaps more importantly, reading introduces new ways to express ideas, which expands your vocabulary and sharpens your writing technique. Whether you’re reading academic papers, novels, or even popular media, the exposure to language helps you develop the skills needed to write more effectively.
As you read, you’ll begin to identify patterns in writing that you want to emulate—clear structures, concise sentences, or creative ways of conveying complex ideas. By studying these techniques, you can incorporate them into your own work, improving both the quality and the clarity of your writing.
Continuously Refining Your Technique
As you progress in your academic career, your ideas will become more complex and that requires even greater writing skills to communicate them clearly. You’ll be tackling bigger ideas, working with more literature, and crossing disciplines. The ability to communicate increasingly sophisticated ideas requires a more advanced writing technique, hence the work on constant improvement. It is common that as we advance in our career we suddenly find writing ‘harder’ and that is because the ideas we are working with are also harder to deliver.
Conclusion: The Never-Ending Journey of Improvement
The key takeaway from this episode is that writing is a practice. Even the most successful academic writers understand that their craft is always evolving. They invest time and effort into improving their writing skills, whether that’s through technical up-skilling, strategic career management, collaboration, or simply reading more.
Improving your writing isn’t a one-time effort—it’s a continuous journey that will last throughout your academic career. By committing to constant improvement, you ensure that your writing remains strong, effective, and impactful. And as you develop your writing technique, you’ll find that it becomes easier to communicate complex ideas and advance your academic career.