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Research Writer Interview With Martyn

Lecturing And Writing Career At A British University


Hello Martyn, can you tell me what, in your view, makes a good academic essay?

A good piece of academic writing sets out its themes and argument/s at the outset succinctly and with clarity, in other words it will let the reader know precisely within the first paragraph exactly what it is intending to do and how it will achieve these aims. It will be structured around a number of clearly recognisable stages of development, often broken down into distinct paragraphs or formal sections. Each of these thematic stages extends upon those which have preceded it and thereby develops the arguments and/or narrative in such a way as to introduce the reader to the various evidences and counter evidences to the topic discussed. When these have been appropriately introduced and elaborated the author will reach a conclusion, even if, as with some topics, that conclusion is speculative. The piece of writing as a whole will have a clear sense of its readership and the vocabulary, grammatical structure, lexicon and tone employed will reflect this consistently throughout. It will be properly punctuated and grammatically correct and references will be correctly cited using an established referencing system such as Harvard.

Tell me a little about your academic background.

I have been a professional academic since 1986 and I currently lecture at a British University. In broad terms my areas of academic specialism include media, cultural and communication studies; more specifically I specialise in the following areas: consumer culture and consumerism, contemporary media and its cultural implications, modernism and postmodernism and popular music. I am a published author of some long-standing having published numerous academic papers in leading international journals as well as two academic text books.

How do you go about choosing a writing project for Custom Papers?

I will only choose those briefs that cover my areas of subject expertise and specialism. I do this for two reasons, 1) the client needs to know they can trust the writer and that the writer knows his or her subject and 2) to choose a topic not directly in my field would mean I would have to spend far too long researching the paper and, quite simply, this would not make sound economic sense for me - time is money!

What do you consider to be the three most important qualities in writing academic papers for Custom Papers?

Quite simply 1) a deep knowledge of one's academic field, 2) attention to detail (i.e. the paper should be error-free and accord to established academic conventions), and 3) being able to write to a deadline. I pride myself on all three of these qualities.

In your view are there any significant differences between writing term papers and writing for academic publication?

In essence no; academic writing is academic writing and there is no reason student work should not be of publishable quality. Throughout my lecturing career I have in fact encountered many student essays that I would consider to be good enough to be published.

In general terms what sort of benchmark do you set yourself for deadlines?

Firstly, I don't commit to a deadline without being one hundred percent confident I can meet it. Beyond that I would reasonably allow between 2 - 3 days to return an essay of between 2,000 - 3,000 words. That is why a detailed knowledge of my subject is so important.

Thank you very much for your time.

No problem, it's been a pleasure.



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