JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REALISM https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2024.2429225 A rational case for a critical realist theory of academic writing Julia Molinari Graduate School and Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK ABSTRACT Academic writings– writings that take place in academic settings, from undergraduate essays to research monographs – are social practices and methods of knowledge enquiry. In virtue of being social and epistemic, they should be of concern to critical realists because of critical realism’s stratified approach to reality. By critiquing approaches to academic writing that can flatten reality, I propose that if academic writings were understood as ontologically stratified social practices, they could afford writers the rational judgement to make textual choices. Specifically, I show that there is the possibility to produce discourse that is different from standardized ‘objective’ and ‘transparent’ academic prose, which, inter alia, also has colonial roots. If academic writings were understood ontologically and epistemologically as practices and methods of enquiry that require writers (i.e. agents) to rationally judge what form their texts should take, this could further academic writing’s educative and emancipatory purpose of advancing knowledge and justice

It's shamefully tame compared to the titans I'm reading but this is my piecemeal ongoing contribution to engaged and emancipatory academic writing practices

#FinalProofs
There's more of this in the pipeline but it takes time to read-to-write
#WhatMakesWritingAcademic
#CriticalRealism
#SocialJustice