One of the perks of my job as "Coordinator of Campus Wide Writing Support" is that I get to talk to faculty across disciplines about writing: writing and their students, teaching writing, learning writing and their own writing.
I especially enjoy talking to scientists and social scientists, whose methods and writing problems and texts differ sharply with what I was raised up reading in English and Creative Writing classes.
"How to teach writing in the sciences" is a pretty rich scholarly topic. Those who are interested can find a lot of material for graduate students and academics learning to write for publication in the sciences.
I've been struck by a theme among the scientists I've spoken to about writing. Granted, I tend to talk to folks who take a particular interest in writing. But let me say this. Not all of them, though a few, would call themselves "writers". Many are part of the audience for Paul Silvia's How to Write A Lot. He urges them to make writing routine. How and why he does-- and why he does for this audience in particular-- is worth a look. If you can, read the book to find out.
That brings me to the topic of today's post: Learn to Write for Your Discipline.
Make learning to write for your discipline part of your writing routine.
Sometimes you might do that more than other times-- now, for instance, might find your reading Silvia's book cover to cover. Still, you might simply hold to the principle that a lot has been written about how to write for your discipline.
You can closely study articles you like to understand the rhetoric of them, or look at some back issues of journals where you'd like to publish.
Couple your study of model journal articles or dissertations chapters with reading about writing in your discipline. Then, apply what you're picking up from the "about" reading to your own analyses of models you want to follow for your own article, chapter or dissertation.
And don't confine yourself to your own discipline! I'll be talking about McCloskey's Economical Writing (recommended to me by an economist; now an essential resource on my shelf) . Of course, there's Silvia's work (written for psychologists; used by people across disciplines).
Here, for example is a link to Readings and Resources, where you'll find a piece on writing introductions to research articles (the famous CARS model) and another piece on the structure of journal articles (from the publisher-- Elsevier-- point of view). See the folder Writing Scientific Papers.
Look at how these pieces analyze their topics and see if you can apply similar terms to writing in your discipline.