Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Writing, The Loneliness of Academic Writing: Why Do We Pretend Readers Don’t Matter?

Last week, teaching writing to graduate students, I watched a familiar scene unfold. We were discussing how to write for specific readers – scholars in their field, policy makers, community organizations. The usual confusion spread across their faces, then one student raised their hand: “But I thought good academic writing was about being objective and comprehensive? About showing we understand the material?”

This moment haunts me because it reveals something profound about how we teach writing in higher education – or rather, how we fail to teach it. For years, we train students in a peculiar form of intellectual performance. Write an introduction with background information. Define your terms. State your methodology. Demonstrate thorough knowledge of the literature. Follow proper citation formats. Use appropriate technical language. It’s a carefully choreographed dance, performed for an audience of one: the professor who already knows everything you’re writing about and is literally paid to read and evaluate your stuff.

Then suddenly, in graduate school or professional academia, we expect these same students to write for real readers – people who might actually need their insights, who have specific problems to solve, who are looking for new understanding, and – most importantly – who choose to read a text. The transition is jarring. All those carefully learned habits of “good academic writing” suddenly become barriers to effective communication.

Think about what we’re really teaching when we tell students to “start with background information.” We’re teaching them to assume readers know nothing – when in reality, readers – and academics even more so – are experts hungry for new insights. When we insist they “define their terms,” we’re teaching them to prioritize comprehensiveness over engagement – when actual readers want to know why they should care before they invest in definitions.

The deeper irony? Many of us know this. We know that our own reading habits are ruthlessly selective. We skim for relevance, hunting for insights that matter to our work. We abandon articles that don’t quickly show their value. We get frustrated with writing that buries its significance under layers of ritual academic performance. Yet when it comes to teaching writing, we perpetuate the very practices we find frustrating as readers.

Perhaps most troubling is how this approach shapes “academic” – or let’s simply call it complex – thinking itself. When you’re not writing for real readers with real needs, it’s easy to lose sight of why your work matters. Research becomes about filling gaps rather than solving problems. Arguments become about being right rather than being useful. The whole enterprise of academic writing starts to feel like an elaborate game of intellectual performance rather than a vital exchange of ideas that could make a difference in the world.

I see this in my students’ faces when we finally discuss real readers. There’s fear – because writing for actual people feels more exposed than writing for a generic “academic audience.” But there’s also relief and excitement. Suddenly, writing has a purpose beyond earning a grade or proving competence. It becomes about serving readers who need what you know.

This shifts everything. When students start asking “Who needs this knowledge and why?”, their writing transforms. They make bolder claims because they understand what’s at stake. They embrace clarity because they want to be useful. They stop hiding behind passive voice and vague generalizations because they’re no longer writing for no one in particular.

Maybe it’s time to radically rethink how we teach writing in higher education. Instead of starting with rules and formats, what if we started with readers? What if our first questions weren’t about proper academic form and showing off knowledge but about who needs this knowledge and why? What if we taught writing not as a performance of expertise but as an act of intellectual service?

As I write this, I’m acutely aware that I’m performing the very balancing act I’m critiquing – trying to speak simultaneously to scholars who might bristle at this challenge to academic conventions and to students and teachers who might recognize their own struggles in these words. But perhaps this tension itself points to something essential: the most valuable academic writing has always been about building bridges rather than towers. Our task isn’t to perfect an isolated form of professional communication, but to find ways to make complex ideas matter to the people who need them. The question isn’t whether to follow or break academic conventions – it’s whether our writing serves real readers with real needs. Everything else is just ritual.


OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Victoria Mummelthei (21. November 2024). Writing, The Loneliness of Academic Writing: Why Do We Pretend Readers Don’t Matter? Keine Disziplin – No Discipline. Abgerufen am 27. März 2025 von https://doi.org/10.58079/13jsa


Eine Antwort auf „Writing, The Loneliness of Academic Writing: Why Do We Pretend Readers Don’t Matter?“

  1. Great piece!

    “Maybe it’s time to radically rethink how we teach writing in higher education. Instead of starting with rules and formats, what if we started with readers?”

    Sadly, we probably won’t, because – as you admits yourself – students have no real readers.

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.