November 5, 2025
Today’s session focused on a crucial shift in thinking about academic writing: moving from explaining what we know to creating problems that readers care about solving.
Opening Discussion: What IS the Function of Academic Writing?
We began by asking students what they think the function of academic writing is. The whiteboard captured a rich range of responses:

Students suggested academic writing functions:
- To think
- To express clearly
- To present “objective” research
- To prove/select ideas
- To share new info/data
- To open perspectives
- To convince people
- To add to conversation
- To archive (what is wanted to be known)
- For career/prestige/credibility
- To show expertise
- As control (of people)
- To make money
- To fill gaps
- To entertain?
Bigger questions that emerged:
- Is academia isolated from society?
- What does academic writing matter to?
- Individuals?
- Institutions?
- “The field”?
- Why write at all?
Key tension identified: The difference between:
- Writer’s purpose: to think about something (uses text as thinking tool)
- Reader’s purpose: to learn about/understand something (uses text as learning tool)

This gave way to the core insight from Larry McEnerny’s writing programme at the University of Chicago: The function of academic writing is to help readers understand better something they want to understand well.
That’s only one way to look at it, of course 😉
Here’s a session with Larry McEnerny; you’ll see I cite him alot:
Key Examples Analysed
Example 1: The Clonal/Sexual Co-existence Problem
We looked at two versions of the same academic opening to see which created more value:
Version 1a (flat?):
As a consequence of the “cost of sex,” the theoretical probability of clonal and sexual co-existence is low; observation of co-existence in vertebrate taxa has been reported. Within the frozen niche-variation (FNV) model, the relevant parameter is difference in overall niche breadth. A wider niche breadth for the sexuals than for the clones is predicted in performance in monocultures; performances in mixtures do not indicate such a relationship. Switching of behaviors or resource-use patterns between mixed and pure cultures may be the cause. The proposed study will examine this prediction of the FNV model.
Version 1b (creates problem?):
As a consequence of the “cost of sex,” the theoretical probability of clonal and sexual co-existence is low. Nonetheless, observation of co-existence in vertebrate taxa has been widely reported. Within the accepted model of frozen niche-variation (FNV), co-existence is explained by difference in overall niche breadth. However, although the FNV model correctly predicts wider niche breadth for the sexuals than for the clones, its predictions are inconsistent with reported performances in mixtures. The proposed study will examine whether the anomaly may be explained by the switching of behaviors or resource-use patterns between mixed and pure cultures.
What makes 1b work differently?
- Uses instability language: “Nonetheless,” “However,” “although,” “inconsistent,” “anomaly”
- Creates tension between what we expect and what we observe
- Shows that current models don’t fully explain the phenomenon
Example 2: William Sewell on Historical Events
We didn’t analyse this one during the session, but I think it’s a brilliant example of how to create a problem that looks like background but actually destabilises existing knowledge:
Ever since Herodotus, historians have written about events. Battles, alliances, scandals, conquests, conspiracies, revolts, royal successions, reforms, elections, religious revivals, assassinations, discoveries: momentous events have always been the bread and butter of narrative history. But despite the prominence of events in historical narratives, the event has rarely been scrutinized as a theoretical category. Traditional narrative historians who reveled in the contingency and particularity of events generally refused on principles to engage in explicit theorizing. Meanwhile, historical sociologists, along with the minority of historians who turned to the social sciences in order to escape the hegemony of political narrative, generally disdained the study of mere events and sought instead to discover general causal patterns underlying historical change. This was true of the “Annales school” in France from the late 1920s forward and of the ‘new social history” that blossomed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s the old antagonisms between narrative history and historical sociology had begun to fade; yet theoretical work on historical events has remained relatively rare…
What’s happening here:
- Looks like historical background
- But actually creates instability: “despite the prominence… rarely scrutinized”
- Shows cost: historians can’t adequately theorize major turning points
- Identifies specific readers: historical sociologists
Example 3: The Erasmus Chronology Problem
It is a perennial paradox of Erasmus studies that neither the wealth of autobiographical information that the Dutch humanist has left us nor the enormous mass of scholarly literature that has grown up around his life and works has ever given us a firm grip on the year of his birth and the chronology of his youth. We do not know with certainty, for example, how old Erasmus was when he entered Steyn monastery…
Key move: The instability is already recognised by the community (“perennial paradox”), so the writer just reminds readers of it.
Example 4: Caribbean Foreign Policy
What is missing [in the study of the international relations of the Caribbean] are the same things that are missing in the study of Third World or Latin American foreign policy and international relations as a whole: Most of what is written is country-specific or issue-specific rather than general and comprehensive; most is descriptive rather than theoretical. The challenge is to put together what we know into a plausible whole, within a suitable theoretical framework, as a first step in developing theory…
But readers may well ask: Why is it important to… to study Third World policy with some rigor… Is it of any great significance…? Apart from the obvious value of supplying knowledge to those who want it, the study of Third World foreign policy should assist in the building and refining of international relations “middle-range” theory. The sub-field of international relations that is most clearly linked to such study is that of comparative foreign policy… Also of relevance is the field of decision-making…the realm of process…
What’s happening:
- Identifies gap/instability
- Anticipates reader skepticism: “But readers may well ask…”
- Has to work harder to show costs/benefits because it’s a gap problem
- Names specific theoretical benefits to specific sub-fields
Example 5: The Book of Amos – De-stabilizing Stasis
In recent years several attempts have been made to discover an overall structural pattern in the book of Amos. Certainly inspired by the burgeoning interest in “literary approaches” to the Bible, these studies have divided Amos into a relatively small number of extended sections, each of which (it is claimed) has a high degree of literary integrity. A comparison of these studies, however, soon reveals considerable diversity among them. Thus, to look no further than the authors mentioned in footnote 1, the following divergent analyses of chaps. 3-6 have been proposed:
Hayes: [pattern #1]
Andersen and Freedman: [pattern #2]
Dorsey: [pattern #3]The only points these scholars are all agreed on are that 5:1 begins a new section (although I shall argue below that in fact it does not) and that 6:14 closes a section (which has long been recognized by all commentators).
The main reason for this diversity, in my view, is that insufficient attention has been given to the criteria for making such analyses. In particular: (i) Formal criteria, such as introductory and closing formulas, have been given much greater prominence than they merit. (ii) Literary criteria, such as palistrophic structuring and inclusos, have often been employed too loosely and impressionistically.
In the present article, I shall offer a new analysis which, through giving particular attention to thematic considerations, will argue that Amos consists of a…
What’s happening here:
- Sets up what looks like stable knowledge: “several attempts have been made”
- Then de-stabilises it: “however, soon reveals considerable diversity”
- Shows the cost: scholars can’t agree because their methods are flawed
- This is a stasis → de-stabilising move rather than just pointing to an existing instability
The Three Components of a Problem
1. INSTABILITY
- Something doesn’t fit
- Something contradicts something else
- Something is inconsistent
- Signal words: however, although, nonetheless, but, paradox, anomaly, inconsistent, reported, widely accepted
2. COSTS/BENEFITS (to readers)
- What can’t we understand if we leave this unstable?
- What would we gain by resolving it?
- NOT “I won’t finish my degree”
- NOT “I find this interesting”
- But: “This prevents us from understanding X that the community cares about”
3. READERS
- Specific communities
- Who cares about this?
- Whose understanding needs to be better?
Gap vs. Problem: The Crucial Difference
Gap thinking: “No one has written about Syrian grocery stores in Neukölln.” → SO WHAT? There are infinite things we haven’t written about.
Problem thinking: “We think we understand how diaspora communities maintain identity through food practices, but the Syrian groceries in Neukölln challenge this model because…” → NOW you’re showing that the gap has consequences for something readers care about.
Gap = “here’s something we don’t know” Problem = “here’s why not knowing hurts our understanding of something we care about”
Work to Do During the Next Week (November 6-18)
Since we won’t meet next week, use this time for two activities:
Activity 1: Find the Problem Language
Take 2-3 published articles related to your field or topic. Read just the introductions and:
- Circle the instability words: however, although, nonetheless, inconsistent, paradox, anomaly, reported, widely accepted
- Locate where costs/benefits are articulated
- Identify who the readers are
Notice the patterns. What language does your field use to create problems?
Also notice that maybe many academic papers do not use problem language at all – and maybe that’s a problem 😉
Activity 2: Test Your Own Tension
Write responses to these three questions about your Berlin tension:
- Instability: What exactly doesn’t fit in your tension? (Use instability language: however, although, but…)
- Costs: What can’t we understand if we leave this unresolved? (What intellectual cost does the COMMUNITY bear – not you personally?)
- Readers: Who are three specific people/groups who would care about resolving this tension? Why would they care?
If possible, share your answers with a fellow students and test whether your costs actually land with readers. Does someone else see why this matters?
A note: You might discover as you do this that the topic you want to write about is actually more about what you’re interested in, or what you want to use to demonstrate your knowledge, qualifications, or expertise. That’s completely okay. That’s how most of us have been trained in academia, and we can do this well.
But in this course, I’m asking you to try something different: to experiment with reader-centered writing. To see what happens when you start from what readers need to understand rather than what you want to show them you know. It’s a different muscle, and it takes practice. This course is the space to try it.
Then: Write your 3-4 page draft (see full assignment details above)
Assignment for November 19th
Write a 3-4 page draft
NOT necessarily the beginning of your paper. Instead:
Pick one moment from your walking where your tension became visible. A specific place, observation, encounter, reading, source etc. that made the tension real.
Write 3-4 pages describing that moment and exploring what made it a problem of understanding – not just something you noticed, but something that created instability in how we think we understand Berlin or/and the Middle East // the Middle East in Berlin.
As you write, keep asking:
- What doesn’t fit here?
- Why should readers care that it doesn’t fit?
- What can’t we understand properly if we leave this tension unresolved?
Don’t worry about:
- Perfect structure
- Citations yet
- Whether this is “academic enough”
- Starting at the beginning
DO worry about:
- Making the instability visible
- Showing why it matters
- Writing toward specific readers (even if you’re not sure who they are yet)
Bring this draft in a format that you can share with fellow students on November 19th.
Looking Ahead to November 19th
Next session focus: Who are you writing for, and can they see why this matters?
We’ll work in pairs or groups or alone to:
- Identify who your specific readers are
- Test whether your instability creates costs they actually care about
- Practice addressing instabilities that help readers understand something better
The question we’ll be asking: Does your writing fulfill its function of helping specific readers understand better something they want to understand well?
Key Takeaways
- Function over form: Academic writing’s job is to help readers understand better, not to explain what you know.
- Problems, not gaps: Don’t just identify what we don’t know. Show why not knowing matters.
- Instability language matters: Words like “however,” “although,” “inconsistent” signal to readers that there’s a problem worth solving.
- Costs must be to readers, not writers: “I need to graduate” is not a reason for readers to care. “We can’t adequately theorise X” might be.
- Background creates stability, problems need instability: Don’t start with what we all agree on. Start with what doesn’t work.

