Thanks for reading them.
But are they skilfully written and explain the subject?
This stuff is all good fun but really I want to write something academic. However since the theme is `Wiltshire` I have a big leeway in subject matter.
I found a CDRom of the Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural History Magazine on Ebay, which gives me a lot of ideas.
I found it very interesting and engagingly written. I wouldn’t call it proper academic writing (although very nice to see a functional bibliography!), but most blog posts aren’t meant to be and your current style, mixing researched facts with personal reflections and a bit of story telling, really does work for blogs aimed at a non-specialist reader. I think you should keep writing these blogs in your current style and focus on developing and improving that style of writing.
If you want to write more purely academic pieces, I suggest picking a few published works from reputable sources that you enjoy reading and try to emulate what they are doing. Really dissect their writing to figure out what they are doing and how. Each field has their own way of writing, but I am sure you already have a feel for what is ”right” in archaeology from all the reading you’ve done so far.
I don’t know the style used in archaeology, but more generally for academic writing, the first thing would be to avoid the chatty style creeping in. The chatty bits are usually either just ”fluff”, in which case you just cut it out altogether, or it is opinions, in which case you express them in a more detatched way. Also, avoid contracted forms like ”I’ve”, ”isn’t” and ”didn’t” and write them out in full every time. And only use partial sentences for effect.
Although, partial sentences are actually best avoided altogether. Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to really guide your reader through your argument and so each sentence need to be clear and on-point. Sentences that start off in one direction and then veer off at the turn of the century and end up in the pub can be very confusing. Usually, there is a logical step missing that you ”see” in your mind when you’re writing, but you fail to put on to paper. Often it can be easily solved by expanding the one sentence into two, each covering one half of the logic journey needed to explain your thinking.
All academic writing is story-telling and, for each piece, you need to figure out what the story is and how best to tell it within the confines of the expected format. When viewed like that, it is not very different from other types of writing.
