An academic writer/speaker may use will/shall/’ll to refer forward in a written text or in an academic presentation (e.g. a lecture), to outline or point to things which are to be found later in the text. Both simple and progressive forms are used. Progressive aspect is especially used when the writer/speaker refers to events which will be repeated or be constant over longer stretches of text. Shall, especially, indicates an undertaking by the writer/speaker to do the action referred to:

Radiant energy plays a vital role in astrophysical scenarios, and often appears as an equal partner to matter in determining the nature of physical processes which govern different structures. So we shall next consider different types of radiant energy which exist in nature and how they interact with matter.

It seems to me that this second case, in which coordination gives way to subordination, often holds in the works of Pascal that I shall be discussing.

[discussing the body displays and vocal displays made by animals]
In the different subsections of this section, I will discuss different possible mechanisms underlying aspects of display development and their interrelationship.

[immunology lecture]
Let’s now just concentrate on the B cells for a few minutes. And then we’ll come back to the T cells.

As is true with all verb contractions, the contracted form ’ll is not normally used in written academic style.

Be going to

Be going to is often used for forward reference in spoken academic style but is generally not used for this purpose in written academic style:

[law lecture]
But do you think that there is a point where the position of consumers has to be looked at very differently from businesses? [pause] we’re going to talk about this more next week because we’re going to be talking about the Unfair Term.

[back]