The authors of Academic Writing Skills noted that many students struggle with professional writing. This is partly because insufficient attention is paid to writing skills in higher education. Throughout their working lives, whether as policy makers, researchers or psychologists, poor writing can have adverse consequences. The text may not be taken seriously, causing potentially important information to be overlooked. Clients may be denied the help they need and the progress of scientific research may be hampered. To address this issue, in addition to the book, the authors have developed a course so that students can practice their writing skills independently. Examples include formulating a specific research question and achieving good cohesion between paragraphs and sentences. Each explanation ends with a guideline, that students can follow when writing texts. The book covers the same topics as the online course and can be used as a reference work.

The book is structured according to the three stages of the writing process: preparation, writing and revision. The first three chapters of the book cover preparation: orienting oneself to the topic, formulating a well-defined main question, searching, reading and selecting relevant literature, and creating a structure outline. Chapters 4 to 6 are devoted to the writing phase: building an article, referencing correctly, quoting and paraphrasing, and arguing. Chapter 7 covers coherence in a text and sentence structures to avoid. Chapter 8 covers scientific writing style. The ninth chapter of the book covers the revision and finalization of the text: grammar, punctuation, content improvements and formatting requirements. The book concludes with evaluation criteria that teachers can use to assess writing assignments.

Compared to the fourth edition, the theory and exercises have been adapted in accordance with the latest edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (seventh edition). In the fourth edition, the scientific review article has already been discussed in more detail. This fifth edition builds on this by adding a new chapter on searching and selecting scientific literature. In addition, the description and processing of scientific sources in the text is discussed in more detail.

All authors are affiliated with the Institute of Psychology at Rotterdam Erasmus University (EUR). Prof. Dr. Henk van der Molen was Professor of Psychology and an expert in the field of professional communication skills. Drs. Margriet Ackermann coordinated and developed teaching programs regarding writing skills at the Institute of Psychology of the EUR. Eveline Osseweijer is a programmer and ICT specialist at the EUR, but previously worked as a teacher in secondary education. Prof. Henk Schmidt is professor emeritus of psychology at the EUR. Estella van der Wal, MSc coordinates many skills courses, including writing skills at the EUR. Dr. Marike Polak is an associate professor at the psychology department at the EUR. She teaches research methods and academic writing skills.