✍️ Finding Your Writing Niche (OWA #3)

Finding Your Writing Niche

Read time: 3 minutes

So, you developed the right mindset for online writing and optimized your profile on Twitter and/or LinkedIn.

Now what? What should I write about, you ask.

This is a question every writer — professional or amateur, experienced or beginner — asks at some point.

The good news is that as an academic you have a lot of things to write about.

You are already an expert in your field or you are on your way to becoming one. Either way you know about a certain subject than a vast majority of people out there. It doesn’t matter if your field of specialization is anthropology or neurosurgery, astrophysics or literary studies.

If you are teaching a course, you can write about what you are teaching and how you are teaching. If you are taking a graduate seminar, you can write about what you are learning and the challenges you are facing. If you are working in a lab, write about what you are working on.

Here are a few examples of writing niches academics have developed on Twitter. Betty S. Lai tweets about how to win grants to fund your research, Kareem Carr about data science and statistics, Ethan Mollick about business education, and Raul Pacheco-Vega, the OG of Academic Twitter, about academic writing.

In August 2022, I taught an Academic Writing 101 course at a Pakistani university. I wanted to teach undergraduate students how to use Zotero, a citation management software.

I started writing threads on Twitter about Zotero workflows that I had prepared for my students. When the semester started in August, I had nearly 3,500 followers and by the time it ended in December, I had gained more than 50,000.

One of the most important things you should keep in mind about Twitter is that it doesn’t matter what you write about. The thing that really matters is how you write.

You can write beaten-to-death platitudes all day, every day but if they are packaged correctly people will read them and follow you. Conversely, you can write about the most interesting things but if they are not packaged for Twitter/LinkedIn, not many people are going to read your work.

This, of course, requires a bit of trial and error and involves writing, rewriting, and editing, topics I will be covering in the coming weeks.

Speaking of editing, a lot of folks reach out to me on Twitter and LinkedIn asking me to help them edit their journal articles.

As much as I want to help them, my schedule doesn’t allow for taking on any editorial work. That’s why I am always on the lookout for reliable editing services for academics that I could recommend.

I have found Editage’s “Advanced Editing Service“ to be quite realiable and efficient. It includes:

• A thorough language and grammar error checking by at least two professional academic editors.

• Assistance in formatting your manuscript to meet the requirements of your target journal.

• Unlimited free chat with your editor, ensuring clear communication and addressing any queries.

• Assurance that your research remains protected and secure throughout the editing process.

Their service is open 24/7, which means you can submit your manuscript whenever you want to. I have heard good things about this service, so if you give it a shot I’d love your feedback on it.

That’s it for today. I’ll see you next week.

Until then, keep writing.