The art of academic writing: Compares academic writing to various art forms: sculpting, drawing, painting, making music, and acting

Introduction
Writing is an art form, but can the same be said of academic writing? Academics certainly share some traits with artists. In this video on why academia can still be a great career, Anne-Wil compared academics and artists in terms of careers. In this white paper, however, we argue that there may also be similarities between academics and artists in day-to-day work practices.

We provide five different perspectives on academic writing: writing as sculpting (by reduction or by augmentation), writing as drawing (sketching and landscape drawing), writing as painting, writing as playing a musical instrument, and writing as acting (both theatre and movie acting). We find that each analogy provides us with a useful lens on academic writing as a process and/or as a product.

Finally, we conclude that academics might be more content with their chosen careers if they were able to re-focus on academic writing as a form of artistic expression and academic passion rather than as a simple "box-ticking" exercise for their CV.