Scholars writing for mainstream newspapers, magazines, and websites make the world of ideas accessible to people outside the hallowed halls of higher education – how dare you. It disrobes the habits of academic writing and respects the skills of the journalist who can turn complexity into clarity for non-specialist readers. Emphasizing the importance of storytelling, this article includes tips for style and structure in public writing and advice on submitting pieces for publication. Published models and sample process steps provide nuts-and-bolts guidance for academics looking to write for public venues but unsure where to start. Behind these strategies lies a simple truth: public writing works best when subject-matter experts do it themselves.

Who is the public? For a scholar, the public is anyone outside of one’s discipline. This is true within academia or without, but cross-disciplinarity as an individual means of academic scholarship tends not to be an explicit part of conversations about how to practice public humanities. This essay critically reflects on how we think about cross-disciplinary scholarship in relationship to public writing and centers mobility as a core tenet of both.