The best advisors do this to set their students up for success

You already know that great writing is critical to your own success as an academic. What you might not realize is just how much influence you have over your students’ career success, based on what you teach (or don’t teach) them about writing.

When it comes to the vast majority of academic writing, it’s a classic case of the lost leading the lost. Very few business PhDs include effective training on writing, so the skill (or lack thereof) essentially follows an apprenticeship model: academics who happen to understand the mechanics of clear, readable writing can help their PhD students become clear, readable writers. It’s my strong belief that this is exactly why advisors with strong publication records have far more successful students than those without. 

Having edited long enough to see dozens of my PhD clients become advisors themselves, I’m not surprised by that finding at all. The skill of communicating your ideas effectively—and thus the ability to get published more often and in better journals—is almost never explicitly taught, only modeled. So if you’re fortunate enough to have a hands-on advisor who can spot a poorly worded argument or confusing sentence? You’ll set off on your own academic career knowing how to strengthen arguments and clear up confusing sentences, maximizing your audience and impact. But if you don’t? You can face an uphill battle for the rest of your career. 

Clearly, this model is broken and deeply unfair (more on that later). But we can commit to doing better. If you’re reading this as a business academic and supervisor, know that providing clear, high-impact guidance on your PhD students’ writing is one of the best things you can do for them. 

Here’s how to do it, in 7 key steps.

Stress the importance of a sustainable writing practice

The back-to-back all-nighters that may have worked (in a pinch) for your advisees as students will obliterate their health and productivity as early-career academics. If they’re going to succeed in the long term, writing needs to become a sustainable habit, as reliable and effortless as showering. Help students understand this mindset by sharing your own writing practice (maybe even virtually co-working if you’re writing on schedule anyway). You should also set regular writing check-ins—whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly—to help prevent major writing issues or backlogs from developing. Create a clear system where students submit drafts ahead of these meetings, giving you time to provide thoughtful feedback.

Teach strategic writing approaches

No one, and I mean no one, sits down and hammers out a perfect draft of anything. But if you look at an award-winning published manuscript, you might think that they did just that. It’s vital that students realize that “embarrassing” first drafts are the process of writing. So are outlining, brainstorming, freewriting, section-separating, reverse-outlining, and revising. Help students break down writing tasks into these kinds of manageable components. Encourage them to start with rough outlines and then develop section by section, rather than attempting to write perfect prose from the beginning. 

Model good writing in action

Time to get vulnerable (because all the best leaders do)! Share your own writing process and challenges. Let students see early drafts of your work to demonstrate that even experienced academics go through multiple revisions. As noted in an earlier point, consider writing alongside your students during designated work sessions to model productive writing habits.

Connect students with resources

Make students aware of university writing support services, style guides, and writing tips and tools, including good information on using AI effectively. Encourage participation in writing groups or workshops. Help them find award-winning papers in your field that demonstrate excellent writing and analyze why the writing works so well (this is a great activity for group discussion). You can also create opportunities for peer feedback within your research group. Finally, I have to mention the obvious: share the name of your editor if you use one! Too many academics still aren’t even aware that we exist, let alone just how much we can help them.

Provide constructive, high-impact feedback

When reviewing drafts, balance critique with encouragement by highlighting strengths alongside areas for improvement (e.g., “This juxtaposition of the concepts that we talked about works so much better here, but I still don’t understand the relationship between x and y. Can you outline that in a few sentences here?”). Be specific in your feedback as well; instead of saying "This needs work" or “Unclear”, explain exactly what's missing or unclear. Provide an example of what you’d like to see, or ask a question that, once answered, will fill in the gap. 

In the same vein, don’t focus on typos (unless they’re a glaring and ongoing problem for the writer), punctuation, formatting, or style. Sure, you can mention them but honestly, in many cases they barely matter compared to how clear, compelling, and readable the writing is overall (especially as AI gets better and better at handling the more minor kinds of considerations). 

I wish I could say there was a better program for these kinds of review and input than Microsoft Word but, for all its problems, it still remains the best tool that I know of for tracking changes and comments to show exactly where and how improvements can be made (which is why my team and I continue to use it as editors).

Proactively discuss typical writing hurdles

Several obstacles are likely to affect most writers at some point; don’t leave your students unprepared or thinking they’re alone in these struggles. You may even want to jot down your own approach to handling common writing difficulties (below are some examples) and share it as a resource with every new student you advise: 

• Overcoming writer's block and regulating the many emotions that writing can stir up

• Managing large and/or long writing projects

• Incorporating feedback effectively

• Meeting journal requirements

• Writing for different academic audiences

• Maintaining a consistent voice and “feel” across coauthored writing projects

• Getting a difficult project finished

  
  

In addition, check in during intensive writing periods if you can. A simple “How is the draft coming along? Any questions coming up as you’re writing?” can feel like a lifeline to someone fighting a creative battle alone on their laptop. Acknowledging that the process is difficult but doable will help your students develop fortitude and resilience as writers.

Set clear expectations

Communicate your availability and response times for reviewing drafts as early as you can (and update students if this changes). You may also want to establish guidelines for what constitutes a reviewable draft (e.g., many of my clients and fellow editors now clarify to students that they won’t read more than a couple sentences of something that was generated by AI; it will be returned without feedback). Similarly, creating timelines for major writing projects can help prepare your students for the crucial process of planning and submitting to journals—don’t forget to include buffer time for feedback and revisions.

Lastly, model clear communication yourself by keeping students in the loop at all times. A lack of communication is at the heart of all the most damaged student–advisor relationships that I see. If you’re unhappy with your student or their work, tell them. If you’re swamped or experiencing a personal crisis that affects your ability to supervise them, say so (no need for details if you’d rather not share). If they’re expecting too much or unaware of appropriate boundaries, it’s your job to tell them that.  

The rewards of helping your students become masterful writers are significant, and they’ll continue to grow as these students become full-fledged academics in their own right and engage with the greater research community. The goal is to help students develop not just as writers, but as confident scholars who can effectively communicate their best research within the systems of academia.