When we talk about academic writing, as usually refer to papers, books, chapters and dissertations. However, there’s a lot more to academic writing than just these four. Even if these are the most high stakes quartet going, there’s still more. A lot more.

This post is simply a list of the most common kinds of writing types that you will come across which all count as academic writing.

Caveats. This is not an exhaustive list. Texts which appear in one group below may equally work in another. Texts are not simply words on a page, but are variously multimodal, digital and hard copy. Some texts serve more than one purpose.

So with that in mind, here goes.

Texts that report academic work written primarily for other academics – and wehich m ay be audited:

Texts written about academic work usually also including non-academic audiences

News columns

Feature articles

Magazine style articles

Blog posts

Social media threads

Letters to the Editor 

Podcasts

Film and video

Exhibitions 

Exhibition and archival interpretative signage

Exhibition catalogues

Essays

Popular non-fiction

Texts that support academic work – some of which may also count for audit purposes

CV

Job applications

Promotion applications

Grant funding bids

Peer reviews, response to reviews and letters to journal editor

Book reviews

Work in progress presentations

Job interviews

Teaching materials

Papers about academic developments and associated presentations

Letters of recommendation and references

Emails

Each one of these text types has separate conventions, histories and reader expectations. Some of these text types are more open than others. Some of these text types are much more constrained than others. But, while some text types, such as fiction, are clearly open to creative practice and others appear to be less so, it is always possible to have a little fun with any genre.

However, my basic point here is that there are a lot of texts in academic work. And a lot that we take for granted. But each of these texts requires us to learn how they work and how we can use them for particular purposes. 

Given the sheer range of text types and potential audiences we now work with, it’s little wonder that many of us choose to limit the number of text types we can conquer at any one time. We’d like to write some fiction but can’t put in the time to do the required practice. We’d like to make a comic but it would take a lot of time we don’t have.

And it is a big ask of anyone, let alone someone early in their academic career, to get on top of all of these text types at once. Yet this is of course exactly what institutions expect. 

Perhaps making visible the range and varied nature of writing expected is a first step towards being able to challenge the expectations that doctoral, precarious and newly appointed colleagues be adept at all forms of academic writing? And to get some acceptance that to get to grips with all of these texts may take time – and support. 

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