The Atlantic

Professors Explain Why It's Hard to Write Online

They’re not wrong.
Source: Gregg Newton / Reuters

There comes a time in every writing-inclined person’s life when they decide between a few paths. Two common paths are journalism and the academy. Do you want to write research that, though it’s less widely disseminated, is arguably more rigorous than most journalism? Or do you want to write journalistic pieces that, though less technical than academic work, often have more impact because of their readability?

More importantly,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Most Consequential Recent First Lady
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The most consequential first lady of modern times was Melania Trump. I know, I know. We are supposed to believe it was Hillary Clinton, with her unbaked cookies
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related