On Writing: Academia, and Who We Write For

I was reading through a peer review comment on one of my manuscripts recently, that comment was not a new one, I had seen it before, on a different paper, a year apart. The comment was simple: the author’s writing style is not very academic.

At the time, I remember feeling confused rather than defensive. I had referenced carefully. I had written formally. I had done what I was trained to do. So I kept wondering what, exactly, was missing. Was it my choice of words? My tone? Or something harder to name?

That question stayed with me for a long time.

It resurfaced later, unexpectedly, while I was looking back at the books I had enjoyed the most that year. Some of them were dense, research-heavy, and far outside my field (i’m talking about neuroscience, trauma and psychiatry type of books). And yet, I understood them. I stayed engaged. I wanted to keep reading. Others, equally credible, required more effort just to stay oriented. I finished them, but more out of persistence than curiosity.

Then it hit me, the difference wasn’t rigour. It was invitation.

As an academic, I’m used to writing for journals, reviewers, and people trained to read a certain way. That has its place. But I sometimes wonder what happens to everyone else, the people who are simply curious, who want to understand how systems work, how waste is treated, how water is cleaned, how decisions shape the world around them.

I don’t have an answer to this. Just a tension I return to often. Between writing that fits neatly within the system I work in, and writing that opens a door a little wider. Between sounding academic, and being understood.

This reflection sits alongside my research. It doesn’t replace it. But from time to time, it reminds me why clarity, care, and invitation matter, even in places where they’re not always rewarded.

I am not a neuroscientist. I didn’t study trauma. And yet, a well-written, research-heavy book changed how I see people, how I understand pain, how I move through the world with more care.

Will anyone ever say that about my work?

Will someone read about water treatment, waste systems, or resource recovery and think, I understand this now, not at a technical level, but at a human one?

Or does my writing only circulate among people who already know how to read it?

These are questions I carry with me, especially when the writing starts to feel heavier than the reason I began.