The act of academic writing: Lessons from the Pacific

Abstract

Although academic writing is central to most academic programmes, students and early career scholars find it hard to find time to write, to start the writing process, to keep writing, or to complete their writing project. In light of these challenges, I developed and facilitated practical academic writing workshops for postgraduate students and early career scholars based in different Schools at The University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. The aims of the workshops were to gauge the challenges faced by postgraduate students and early career scholars in their academic writing, to provide a space to share writing experiences and challenges, and to provide tools that can be used to ease the act of academic writing. Participants’ feedback highlighted that oral traditions, linguistic diversity and symbolic space play a crucial role in academic writing – three themes that are under-researched in the literature on academic writing. The article further provides a structured framework that can be used to organise practical academic writing workshops at other universities and academic schools, including minority-serving institutions, and for neurodivergent students and scholars.