Academic Writing as if Readers Matter

Academics must write many different forms of texts, such as papers, grants, and referee responses. The book "Academic writing as if readers matter" by Leonard Cassuto tries to teach you general principles applicable in all forms of academic writing. The book succeeds at this task, and I can recommend this book to my graduate students.

The book differs from standard style books in one important regard: It spends a lot of effort to convince you why the rules it recommends are good rules. The book claims that academic readers have limited time, attention, and motivation to read your text, so you must put effort into accommodating readers.

The book's repeated reminder of this central principle could be cumbersome for experienced writers. Some of the metaphors the author insists on using, such as a car ride, a handshake, and a blue whale, felt overused. At the same time, these reminders are probably helpful to beginning academic writers. Many of the sections of this book can be safely skipped upon second or third reads once you have absorbed this message.

The book has many illustrative examples. While the author himself studies American literature, he uses examples from different disciplines to keep things varied. You will not find mathematical examples in the book, but some "hard science" examples are included. A few of the examples from the social sciences were hard to parse, but they did not harm the overall readability of the book.

The most helpful examples in this book are "worked-out examples" where the author shows an improved version. They do a good job illustrating the point, and I wish there were more of them. In a similar vein, some of the "anti-patterns" are easy to remember and are immediately practical. For example, he cautions against weak forms of "be", the "it is ... that" construction, and weak connector words, all habits I am guilty of frequently. A useful complement for this book might be a collection of anti-patterns, specifically for mathematics and physics writing.

The real value of a book like this will only emerge if one starts practicing what it preaches. Recent LLMs are helpful here: they can easily flag many of the anti-patterns and other weaknesses in your writing. We still have to use our own judgement on how to improve our writing; The book's real value is to cultivate a taste for what good writing looks like.