10 resources, mostly online, for academic authors

1. To see how to write er­gonom­i­cal­ly, click here.

2. For a dis­trac­tion-free on­line writ­ing site, see Qui­etWrite.

3. If that doesn’t keep you from on­line dis­trac­tions, you can use Cold Tur­key or Free­dom.

4. Or, if you’re re­al­ly des­per­ate, use Write or Die: http://write­ordie.com/.

5. For com­pos­ing long texts, con­sid­er down­load­ing Scriven­er.

6. For gen­er­al guid­ance, see the Poyn­ter In­sti­tute’s list of 50 tips: http://www.poyn­ter.org/how-tos/news­gath­er­ing-sto­ry­telling/writ­ing-tools/76067/fifty-writ­ing-tools-quick-list/. Al­so learn from the ad­vice from some Egyp­tian nov­el­ists, much of which is trans­fer­able to aca­dem­ic writ­ing: http://www.egyptin­de­pen­dent.com/news/8-egyp­tian-nov­el­ists-share-their-%E2%80%98rules%E2%80%99-writ­ing.

7. For guid­ance on aca­dem­ic writ­ing, see the fol­low­ing ded­i­cat­ed sites:
a) Write Your Re­search: http://writey­our­re­search.word­press.com
b) Ex­plo­rations of Style: http://ex­plo­rationsof­style.word­press.com/
c) Write or Re­vise Dai­ly: http://write­or­re­visedai­ly.word­press.com/
d) Writ­ing a Jour­nal Ar­ti­cle: http://writin­ga­jour­nalar­ti­cle.word­press.com/
e) Ed­itage: http://www.ed­itage.com/re­sources/in­dex.html.

8. The So­ci­ety for Ed­i­tors and Proof­read­ers’ web­site gives plen­ty of prac­ti­cal ad­vice about edit­ing and about us­ing pro­fes­sion­als (es­pe­cial­ly in the ’col­lec­tive wis­dom’ sec­tion): http://www.sfep.org.uk/.

9. Prac­ti­cal ad­vice on proof­read­ing is avail­able here and a hov­er-over guide to pro­fes­sion­al proof­read­ing sym­bols is avail­able here.

10. For a rev­o­lu­tion­ary piece of writ­ing tech­nol­o­gy – one that I find re­al­ly helps my own writ­ing to flow – see here.

This piece was writ­ten for par­tic­i­pants on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge’s Writ­ing Skills Sum­mer School. I hope it proves help­ful for oth­er users too.