The Importance of Creative Writing Skills in Dissertations and Academic Papers

Most people think that academic writing is all about rigid rules, not creativity and new ideas. In reality, however, it’s often the mix of these 2 elements. In fact, many essays require you to find the balance between your own imagination and rigid facts. But what’s the right way to do that? 

Well, the short answer to this question is to read the guidelines and follow them to the letter. For example, you can often see phrases like “in your own words” or “according to your understanding” in the instructions. But what can you do if these requirements come together with the need to cite at least 3 recent sources? Let’s review some tips that might help you.

Dissertations and flights of fancy

Some students may think that a dissertation isn’t the type of paper where you can use your creativity. However, you need more out-of-the-box thinking with such works than you do with most academic assignments.

This fact can be as hard to understand in isolation as it’s hard to find dissertation writing services optimal price-quality ratio. So, let’s look at the details of creative writing techniques for this type of task together.

1. You need to get creative to find the right topic for your dissertation. Before you begin creating this massive academic project, you need to draft up a few ideas on its theme and present them to your professor. It’s only natural to use metaphors and allegories when you’re telling your readers about the scientific phenomenon you want to explore. 
2. Describing your ideas requires a creative approach. When you’re already writing your dissertation, you need to explain how your ideas work to readers who have never heard of those thoughts. Once again, you may have to use metaphors or analogies to make other people understand you. After all, there’s a reason why linguists say that our brain thinks in metaphors. With this literary technique, you can use fewer words to convey your hypotheses.
3. You need to balance out the quotes by other authors with your own interpretations. A good academic paper can’t be a compilation of citations from various scientists. Instead, those quotes need to support your ideas and claims. You might be surprised to read this, but combining someone else’s word with your own vision harmoniously is also a creative writing skill, and the same goes for precise paraphrasing.

General rules of writing for academia and fiction 

It’s not hard to imagine that all types of writing that mean to convey some ideas to the readers share similar techniques. Of course, literary and academic styles mostly achieve this goal in vastly different ways. Nevertheless, these 2 approaches have something in common. Here are a few examples. 

Firstly, both academic and literary writing can tell stories. Whether that’s the history of the Manhattan Project or a story about a brave hero, you often need to inform your audience about different events in both writing styles. No matter if you’re writing a novel that must produce emotional impact or a paper that has to prove a point, you have to make sure that facts come first. Balancing your fantasy and what’s most important is the key to success in any type of writing.

Secondly, people in both academia and literature need to present innovative ideas. As we’ve mentioned before, it’s impossible to stay completely impartial and matter-of-fact when you’re talking about something completely new. In literature, you may have to convince the audience that the fantasy world you’ve created is close to real, in science you need to prove that your hypothesis may be true. With such similar goals, no wonder that some methods may coincide. 

Third, you need to use both styles to the right extent in a good paper. When all the factors mentioned above come together, you need to arrange them into a coherent and cohesive academic work. While this may appear difficult, it’s definitely possible. After all, every student reads books and watches movies, so it’s pretty easy to pick up a few successful narrative strategies. After you describe your ideas and paraphrase your quotes, you’ll see that they can all fall in their right places, like pieces of a puzzle. 

Balancing the styles

The key to seamlessly incorporating even the boldest ideas into your formal papers is to maintain the same style throughout your work and use techniques like cautious writing. These elements will yield a well-balanced and rationally presented research where your bold thoughts become hypotheses and assumptions.

Together with solid facts from trusted sources, your creativity will gain even more dimensions than it would have in any other text. 

In short, don’t be afraid to experiment! Even if your first attempts aren’t everything you’ve hoped for, you can achieve great results with practice and advice from your professors.