Real Academics Blog

Dear Real Academics, The month of October 2021 we gave our website a facelift. We had launched our website just 6 months before this date, but we realized it was already time to revamp it. Allowing our website to sit for some time and then revisiting it was a helpful exercise. Time "away" (i.e., distance) provided us with perspective to allow for quality revision.  Allow us to give you an application of the above story related to your writing. Writing Quality Tips If you want to improve the quality of your writing: Start as early as possible. Starting your writing project early gives you time to receive feedback from others and to provide you with personal distance (see points below). Seek feedback during different phases of your writing project (e.g., beginning, middle, end). External feedback provides a clear set of eyes to see your work and give you valuable reader-based feedback.  Allow personal distance from your project. Here, personal distance = putting a project...

Dear Real Academics, I've been thinking a lot about conflict lately. I've been thinking about it because I don't like it.   As much as I prefer harmony and unity, however, I need to be very careful about what this harmony and unity looks like. If what seem like harmony and unity comes at the expense of sacrificing freedom, then it is deceptive. Let me give you an example.  In academic discourse, which includes writing and speaking, something always "smells fishy" to me when I can anticipate what someone is about to say so that it aligns with popular lingo and assumed ways of thinking. I call this group think. Furthermore, when those who question or pose a different point of view are silenced or censored and/or held in contempt, then critical thinking is being suppressed in the name of a deceptive idea of unity. I don't know about you, but when I was learning to write persuasively, the idea was to have a well formed argument supported by carefully researched i...

Dear Real Academics, I like to write. However, when I was in graduate school, I started to dislike writing...a lot. Is this you? Or perhaps you already really dislike writing? Here I want to share one tip I learned from being in the P.O.W.E.R. writing services that helped rekindle my love for writing and which, I believe, can help anyone become a more motivated and perhaps even better writer. That one tip is to read something beautiful. That's right. If you are an academic writer, chances are that you are immersed in reading technical genres of writing. To be frank, most academic writing is, unfortunately, not beautifully written.  As a human, I believe a little bit of my soul starts to die if I am not exposed to beautiful things after long-periods of time. Perhaps that's why it's so important for me to remember to take a walk and look at the sky or to appreciate art and music and to read beautiful things.  Beauty does something good to my soul.   For a writer -- ...

 Dear Real Academics, What do bats, babies, and bicycles have in common? Apart from starting with the letter "b", my husband, puppy, and I ran into all of them on our walk/hike this weekend on the historic Railroad Pass in Boulder City, Nevada.  The Railroad Pass is a walking/hiking path that runs alongside the mountains adjacent to Lake Mead and leads to the Hoover Dam. The pass goes through a series of tunnels blasted into the mountains back in the 1930's when the Hoover Dam was being constructed (known as the Boulder Dam back then).  Railroad tracks were laid down to transport materials from Boulder City to the dam construction area. Today, the tracks have been covered and people like to walk (their dogs), push strollers with babies, jog, and ride their bikes along the trail and enjoy the beautiful views of the lake.  Here is a picture of us on the trail this weekend. If you look closely, you can see one of the mountain tunnels in the background where, of course, ...

Dear Real Academics, I have built much of my career off of the relationship between writing and thinking . The whole foundation of my research is based on the argument regarding the importance of utilizing language -- specifically writing -- to understand scientific concepts.  Writing can help us refine our thinking, and even change it. Writing can help us understand the world. Writing can help us understand ourselves.  The image of the solitary writer sorting through their thinking is not a myth. This image may be criticized, mainly from the angle of assuring writers they are not alone and that others are writing alongside them, and even with them. There is power to these points, and I greatly value my community of writers and am motivated by being part of writing groups.  But here, my point is that individuals -- whether writing alongside or with someone -- are still individuals with thoughts, emotions, feelings, hopes, and dreams unique to them. Writing is a form of di...