Improve Your Writing for Grad Work

What is this resource?

Grad work often involves a lot of reading and writing.

Often, the purpose of writing as part of graduate programs is to support you in thinking through complex ideas and making meaning of what you are learning. Writing involves problem finding and solving, wrestling with ideas, synthesizing key concepts and perspectives, and applying what you learn to your specific music teaching context.

This page includes resources and suggestions that I find myself sharing with graduate students to support their work, so I am sharing it here more widely in case it can be helpful to you.

Who am I to provide writing advice?

I am not an expert in writing. You should definitely seek out the perspectives and resources of writing experts and scholars of writing. However, I write a lot as part of my academic work and read and respond to student writing regularly. So I’ve found these resources helpful in supporting grad students improve their own writing. So, take this all with a grain of salt and then seek out additional resources to support your own writing journey.

General Writing Advice & Resources (For Grad Work)

Before submitting your writing, work through the following steps as part of your writing process.

  • Read your writing silently
    • Are you communicating what you aim to communicate? 
    • Are there parts that you really love or feel great about? What is it about those parts?
    • Are there parts that you are less happy with? What is it about those parts?
    • How might you make your writing more compelling?

Adjust as necessary.

  • Proofread – check for mechanical issues (spelling, grammar, spacing etc.)
  • Read your writing out loud before you share it
    • How does it flow?
    • Do parts sound choppy?
    • Are there parts that you stumble over — what might you do to address those parts?
    • Are you communicating what you aim to communicate?
    • Is the text working as intended?
  • Adjust as necessary
  • Make sure you have explained any key concepts or terms you have included
    • Don’t assume that the reader is familiar with or understands the key concepts or terms in your writing. Take the time to explain what these concepts and terms mean and then make sure you explain how they relate to whatever you are writing about.
  • Make sure you have explained any quotes or citations you have included
    • Don’t just drop a quote in a middle of a paragraph as if it will be obvious to readers why you are including the quote or how it relates to what you are writing. Contextualize the quote in relation to what you are writing about and explain how the quote relates to whatever point you are making.
  • Avoid giving careful readers the citation blues while potentially misleading less-careful readers. Be intentional, rigorous, and do your homework when citing something or someone.
  • Adjust as necessary
  • Strengthen your writing by making connections to related ideas, concepts, theories, or frameworks, and cited scholarship that can help explain these phenomena from a curricular perspective.
    • This helps you develop deeper understanding while also adding nuance to your writing.
  • Consider what questions people might ask you if they read or heard what you are about to share.
  • Consider addressing those questions in your writing/text.
  • Create a list of the typical writing issues or habits that your professors or others mention in written feedback or conversations in relation to your writing.
    • Keep this list handy so you can access it when writing.
  • Look through your list of typical writing issues or habits
    • Are any of those issues present?
  • Adjust as necessary

Writing Check

For larger sections of writing, try the following process. The goal here is to write in a way that explains what you mean and to avoid situations where you mention numerous concepts but never explain them in a way for readers to understand what you are writing.

There may be times when you write in a way to purposefully leave things open-ended, messy, and unclear.

This process works best if you can find someone to engage with you and your work, but if needed, you can attempt to do this on your own by taking a step back from your work.

  • Make 2 or more digital copies of your writing
  • Share a copy with:
    1. Someone who is somewhat familiar with your writing topic or area but not necessarily an expert
    2. Someone from outside your area altogether
  • Ask the people to read through the writing and to highlight any terms or phrases or concepts you’ve written that they do not understand or are unsure what you mean
  • You might consider the terms or phrases that people highlight to be code words
  • Go through the same process with your own writing
  • Compile all of the highlights
  • Analyze if there are any commonalities
  • Ascertain which highlighted terms, concepts, phrases would be known to the majority of people in your area if it is “common knowledge”
  • Ask yourself the following:
    1. Do I know what this term, phrase, or concept means (or did I simply use a term, phrase, concept that I’ve read many times before and used it in a way that is contextually similar)?
    2. Is this an issue of the term, phrase, or concept I used where I could simply use a different term, phrase, or concept and people would be able to understand it more easily.
    3. Is this an issue where I did not explain or define the term, phrase, or concept
    4. What might be the issue of why people are having difficulty understanding what I mean?
    5. Work to explain or define the term, phrase, or concept.
  • Create a list, mindmap, or other visualization of all the terms, phrases, or concepts that were highlighted
    1. Organize the list, mindmap, or visualization in a way that makes sense and that clusters similar terms, phrases or concepts
    2. Ask yourself if you are being consistent in the terms, phrases, or concepts
      1. If not, is this on purpose?
      2. If it is on purpose, consider how and when you are using each term, phrase, or concept and be intentional.
      3. If it is not on purpose, adjust as necessary
  • Try out Inger Mewburn (The Thesis Whisperer)’s checklist on “How to unf*ck your writing”  – on your own writing! 

Common Writing Issues & Solutions

The following suggestions focus less on imaginative or creative approaches to writing to address clarity and mechanics. 

Writing Resources

The following books and other resources provide important perspectives, expertise, prompts, and suggestions for improving your writing. (Note- some of the book links are affiliate links).

  • They Say I Say – Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
    • Straightforward writing advice. Includes numerous prompts and templates to help develop writing that links existing scholarship to your own work.
  • Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters – Harold Evans
    • Advice and recommendations for improving the clarity of your writing. Helps you get to the point and tighten up your writing.
  • The Writers Diet: A guide to fit prose – Helen Sword
    • Once you have your ideas in order and your mechanics down, Helen Sword’s recommendations will help take your writing to the next level. Specific suggestions to tighten up your writing, improve flow, and determine what is essential to include and what to cut.
  • Stylish Academic Writing – Helen Sword
    • Recommendations for smoothing out clunky writing, gaining and holding readers’ attentions, and stylish writing. Great for taking your writing to the next level after several rounds of edits and revisions.
  • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life – Anne Lamott
    • Essays on writing that help you reframe your approach to writing and its role in your own educational journey. Lamott provides comfort in reminding us that everyone starts with a “shitty first draft.”
  • Academic Writing Advice – Raul Pacheco-Vega
    • Dr. Pacheco-Vega’s curated resources to support academic writing.
  • Purdue University OWL Academic Writing Resources
    • A curated set of resources on academic writing.