Book Launch - A Guide to Academic Writing, How to tame your Essay by Ira Ruppo

 

Book Launch - A Guide to Academic Writing, How to tame your Essay by Ira Ruppo 

 

 

 

 

 

Ira is the Academic Writing Centre Manager in the Library. 

 

Drawing on her many years of experience as an academic, teacher, and manager of the Academic Writing Centre, Ira has written a book which will help students of many disciplines with their Academic Writing.  

 

I asked Ira what inspired her initially to write this book. Ira explained that her work over the years greatly motivated and guided her to write a book which would be accessible to all. Ira has many years' experience with students from many disciplines, and she wanted to help them  to develop techniques which have helped her in her own work over the years. Many of these techniques are inspired by the research that Ira has carried out in the field of Academic Writing.  

 

You may be surprised to hear that Ira herself has had writing blocks in the past which she discusses in the book. In contrast to past experiences, she didn't encounter many obstacles during this project. Ira found the book very enjoyable to write overall with very few challenges. She was conscious, however, of her voice in certain chapters and wanted to come across to her readers in the right manner, therefore taking the time to reflect until she was happy with the final draft. 

 

While discussing final drafts, Ira mentioned she applied the same principles and techniques that she utilises in her own writing to editing this book and, in the process, discovered new techniques. 

                      

 

Ira also described how her nineteen-year old helped her with the dialogue sections in the book by pointing out that the intentionally robotic manner was distracting well as offering hints on how to fix it. Ira had assumed that the dialogue sections did not need to be natural, but she was wrong. The robotic manner of the dialogue distracted the readers from the content. More work needed to be done. Ira reflects on the point that 'style isn’t just style; style is a function of your engagement with the reader' and it’s not about impressing the reader with your eloquent writing, but helping them understand you; if you do it with empathy rather than fear, style just follows’.  

 

Ira hopes that the readers will benefit from the structure of the book, which is organised as a four-week course, with a theme for each weekday and additional materials for weekends. Focusing on the weekday chapters is the main priority, as these will help the readers understand and take control of their writing process.  This involves the emotional and social aspects of writing as well as time-management and honing the craft. Ira believes the weekend sections of the book are especially helpful, as those include text studies, personal stories and dialogues and will give new and unexpected insights to readers to help them along in their own writing journey. 

 

I enquired about the unusual artwork on the book, and Ira explained she is immensely grateful to the artist for creating this and is delighted to have a book with a dragon on the cover! If you look closely at the digital image, you may see some text on the wings of the dragon which are in fact Ira’s actual essays which also feature in the book.  

 

Prof. Daniel Carey launched Ira’s book on the 12th March. 

Jacqueline Finnerty, Library Marketing & Engagement Executive