Purposeful writing should add value or challenge the perspectives of your readers.
by Cherene de Bruyn
PUBLISHED: 17 September 2025 on Substack
PhD and early-career academic writers find it hard to connect with their audience of readers. They find it hard because they haven’t realised that no one cares about what they know. It is a hard truth. One that many of us struggle with. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of academic writing is not to persuade the reader in jargon-filled stanzas about your opinion on a subject matter. Or to prove that you know what you are talking or writing about. Honestly, readers don’t care. Not because what you are saying isn’t potentially important or interesting, it’s just that you failed to enlighten them about the value this information has for them, and how not having this information is costing them. There is a fine line between informing and enlightening your readers.
Writers think they need to write text to change the world, because their ideas have meaning (and they really might). But forget that readers read the text to understand the world. As such, a dilemma of misunderstanding and frustration occurs. The writer, because few appreciate and understand the informative nature of their musings. The reader, because few publications can grasp their attention and hold it long enough for them to be truly inspired by the text.
See, we read not only to get information. This is one part of the reading process. We also read to glean what the author has discovered and how that discovery can potentially shape our own ideas. But writers who only write to present strings of facts, organised in neatly spaced paragraphs, are not doing the reader, or themselves, any favours. The facts, regardless of whether they are earth-shattering or presented with pazzazz, will remain moot if the book cover stays closed, or the website tab to the article is never opened.
Thus, to engage your reader, put yourself in their shoes. Instead of approaching a topic from what you know, ask yourself what do they - the reader- want to know. What question do they have? Then, consider how the information you have can answer those questions, and if the information will benefit them if they learn it, or what the cost will be if they don’t. This creates the opportunity for you to draw the reader in, because none of us like losing and we all like winning and getting an advantage. By approaching your writing in this manner, you not only assist the reader in understanding the world, but you also add to their perspectives, and you might even change it.
As PhD students, we need to write every day to become better. Better at commanding the English language and better at articulating our ideas. But importantly, better in how we communicate what we have discovered in our research and the value it holds for our readers. While a lot of emphasis is being placed on how PhD research needs to be novel and original, I’m starting to prefer to think of my research in terms of its value. My research’s worth and relevance lasting beyond the completion of my PhD. It is a topic worth pondering - whether the novelty of the information adds value, not only to the academic discourse, but to the public consumers of such knowledge.
Just some food for thought.
Until next week.
Stay curious. Stay kind. Begin again – in tune with the reader!
BruynChild