Becoming an Academic Writer (Patricia Goodson) – my reading notes

Even though I write a lot about Academic Writing, I rarely read books now on #AcWri. Not because I don’t want to, but because I have so much stuff that I need to write myself that I end up shunning any other type of reading other than my scholarly work. HOWEVER, I had heard so much about Professor Patricia Goodson’s book “Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive and Powerful Writing” that I had to actually buy it (I could have asked for it as a review copy, but I figured it was important to pay for the product itself if I benefit from it).

Summary of Goodson's book: it's a workbook intended to improve your academic writing by empowering you to #AcWri pic.twitter.com/M9MvToXPCp

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 8, 2017

As my brief Twitter-sized comment above says, I found Goodson’s book quite compelling. Goodson is quite clear in that her book is more of a workbook than a textbook. I strongly believe that the fusion of workbook-type exercises with more theoretically-grounded accounts of the basis for each exercise and/or routine that Goodson presents is quite compelling. Goodson actually encourages the reader to seek a deeper understanding of why we procrastinate when we actually should be writing, and how to overcome roadblocks (also well known as “writer’s block”).

There are obviously points where I agree with Goodson, and one or two areas where I definitely have my disagreements. For example, while I am a big advocate of considering anything that pushes our research forward, “academic writing” (e.g. writing emails about a paper or datasets to a coauthor or a student, writing summaries of articles and books, etc.), I am definitely not on board with considering the writing letters of nomination or recommendation or providing feedback to students actual AcWri. I may be alone in my assessment of what should be considered #AcWri, but that’s literally the very one disagreement that I could find with what should be otherwise read as a fantastic workbook.

This is the only point where I disagree with Goodson: I don't consider writing letters of recommendation #AcWri nor student feedback notes pic.twitter.com/xl7CIqcG1j

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 8, 2017

Goodson’s “Becoming an Academic Writer” is a logically-structured, fast-paced read. I literally devoured the entire book in one sitting (though Goodson explains how to best use the book). I would skip Chapters 1 and 2 and go directly to Chapters 3 onwards to the exercises. I haven’t tested them, but having read them and suggested similar stuff in my blog posts, I am completely on board with using Patricia Goodson’s “Becoming an Academic Writer” as a workbook to teach how to improve your academic writing. The other book I think you should consider reading, and I’ll be writing a set of reading notes on that one too is Wendy Laura Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success

I often recommend Goodson for people who would like a self managed structured approach.

— pat thomson (@ThomsonPat) July 8, 2017

I’m not the only one who sings Patricia Goodson’s praises. Dr. Pat Thomson wrote a review of Goodson’s book here. Her post provided me with a good reminder – I should mention that I paid for Goodson’s “Becoming an Academic Writer” on my own dime, so I have no obligations to provide a nice review. I just loved her book! And I thoroughly recommend it, both for my own students and for anyone (established or up-and-coming) who wants to improve their writing with systematic exercises. You can read more about the underlying logic of the POWER method that Goodson preaches here (link to a PDF of one of her talks).

UPDATE – Grateful to Shalini Sharma and Marieke Riethof for useful and insightful feedback on the issue of whether writing letters of recommendation and student feedback notes should be considered #AcWri.

True. Both Reccos (a service) & Student feedback (a univ requirement) are unrecognised under academic performance score or even workload.

— Shalini Sharma (@nutshal) July 8, 2017

I clarified my position on Twitter, as I think what Goodson’s book is about is teaching you to self-motivate to do your academic writing. I don’t need motivation to do stuff for my students!

I'm always motivated to write anything that will move my students forward. Not always motivated to write stuff that will move ME forward!

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 8, 2017

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