Styles: Academic writing comes in many different styles, as in the style guide followed for a particular piece of writing. These style guides are created by professional entities devoted to the disciplines which they serve. In the Humanities, common styles include the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, Chicago style, and the Associated Press (AP) style. In the sciences (both social and natural sciences), the most common style is the American Psychological Association (APA) style.

Peer Review: The hallmark of academic writing is the peer-review process. For a piece of writing to be peer reviewed is for it to have been, before its publication, read and approved of by multiple experts in the field to which it is addressed. In other words, where non-academic publications are accepted or rejected for reasons relating to their marketability, academic publications must also pass the test of accuracy (or at least plausibility).

The Main Forms of Academic Writing: There are three main forms of academic writing--the journal article, the chapter in an edited collection, and the book monograph. A journal article is a relatively short piece (usually around 25 pages) that appears in a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to a certain field of study. It appears alongside several other articles written by different people. A chapter in an edited collection is similar in length to a journal article, and it also appears alongside pieces from other writers, but this book chapter appears in a volume more focused around a specific topic (in contrast to the general field addressed by a journal). A monograph is a single-authored argument sustained over a whole book (usually 150 pages or more). 

The Publication Process: Academic publication is usually a long process with several stages of revision. After an idea is arrived at and a paper is written, the academic will often present the paper at a conference and perhaps teach a course related to the idea. Based on feedback from these audiences, and continued thought on the matter, the writer will revise the idea, write an article , and submit it to a peer-reviewed journal. The editor of that journal will read the article, determine whether or not it's suitable for the journal, and (if it's suitable) send the article off for review by specialists on the subject. For an article to be "suitable," it must fit well with the concerns and priorities of the journal; many articles that are rejected by an editor before even being sent out for peer review are rejected not because the paper is crap but because it does not fit exactly with the concerns of the journal. When a submission is sent along to reviewers, they read the article, comment on it, and recommend one of several courses of action for the editor: accept the article, accept the article with revisions, ask the writer to revise and resubmit the article, or reject the article. The editor will consider the readers' reports, come to a decision, and contact the writer to inform him or her about the decision, usually sending along the readers' reports as well. The process from article submission to decision can take anywhere from one month to two years, depending on the journal and the discipline (in general, science journals move more quickly than humanities journals). A "revise and resubmit" can extend the timeline another three to six months; a rejection will sometimes come with a recommendation of another journal where the article may be more suitable or may have better luck. Once accepted, an article will appear in print anywhere from four months to two years after its acceptance. If that article is part of a larger project that the writer is working on, it may reappear (perhaps revised again) as a chapter in a book, often alongside other previously published articles that have appeared in other peer-reviewed journals. If the writer has a book in mind, he or she will put together a book proposal and send it to publishers, who will often respond with comments and sometimes an offer to publish the book. If the proposal is accepted, the writer revises the various pieces into a cohesive manuscript, which, when finalized, is sent off to readers for peer review. Based on comments from those readers, the writer will revise the manuscript one final time, and then it will appear in print anywhere from four months to one year later.

Publication and Compensation: Academics are not paid for journal articles, and they are not paid well for books. Compensation for academic publishing is somewhat circuitous: tenure and promotion are largely dependent on publication. Thus, the phrase "publish or perish" has become popular in academic parlance. Academics understand that it's part of their jobs to research and publish. In this sense, students, alumni, and philanthropic groups (at private institutions), as well as tax dollars from the general population (at public institutions), subsidize academic research through the faculty salaries they pay for; those sources of university funding also pay the often exorbitant fees academic journals charge universities and colleges for subscriptions.

Publishing and Tenure: An ideal track for an academic is to publish one or two articles in respected journals while in graduate school, to gain employment (partly based on those articles) as a "tenure track" assistant professor, to turn his or her dissertation into a book, and then to earn a promotion to the rank of associate professor, at which point tenure is usually granted. The tenure process usually takes six to eight years, and then it can take another 6 to 10 years for the associate professor to be promoted to a full professor, which is again largely based on publications, often a second book. 

From Academic to Public Writing: While public writing is shorter and less specialized, it usually comes at the end of the research and writing process. It offers the key take-aways, packaged in an easy-to-access writing for non-specialist audiences. Public writing is often compensated, but not well: a writer might get $100 for an article based on ten years of research.