Templates of Ideas: The charm of storytelling in academic discourse

In this text, we argue that the stereotypical, traditional way of academic writing may be disempowering and inhibit the development of new ideas and practices. We characterize the stereotypical template for academic writing, ref ecting on how expression and communication works in relationship to such templates. We illustrate our argument with students’ images of fiction versus academic writing, and an own attempt at “cross-template” translation. The discourse can be enriched, we believe, by colorful, engaging storytelling – a development which is taking place with the growing interest in narrative knowledge.