5 ms·
I'm not going to say that there's isn't plenty of obscurantism, needless jargon, and just plain bad writing in academia. But, this article paints a pretty simpl
by mazelife 11y ago
I'm not going to say that there's isn't plenty of obscurantism, needless jargon, and just plain bad writing in academia. But, this article paints a pretty simplistic and one-sided picture. Let me take a quote that's emblematic of the problem from one of the professors (!?) in the article: “Academics, in general, don’t think about the public; they don't think about the average person, and they don't even think about their students when they write,”[Deborah S. Bosley] says. “Their intended audience is always their peers. That’s who they have to impress to get tenure.”
Specifically this notion that "[an academic writer's] intended audience is always their peers," is treated as though it's somehow incriminating. But it's not, it's what most academic writing is for! Many academics do write for the public—and that's great, and more should do so—but they don't publish that in journals or with an academic press and when they do write for the public, their writing is usually pitched at a more accessible level. But most of the writing academics do is aimed at their peers because that is how ideas are transmitted among specialists and how a body of knowledge is gradually expanded. The notion that that they only do this just to "impress" or get tenure seems to be a really bad-faith argument.
Look, any highly technical endeavor is going to have highly technical jargon that’s pretty impenetrable from the outside. There's nothing wrong with that: it allows specialists to communicate about complex topics efficiently. Whether the field is medicine, philosophy, or computer science is immaterial. Frankly, if you want to see a place where obscurantism, needless jargon, and just plain bad writing are used as tools to disguise the fundamental banality of the ideas being presented, look no further than a lot of business writing. I'd take academic writing over management-speak any day.
- airza 11y agoI don't see much complaining about academic jargon in this article. There is some, but it's more about the tortuous syntax and sentences mostly devoid of meaning. I also disagree that it's about impressing their peers and more about writing in the 'usual' style for academic papers. The style of business writing is equally cumbersome, but this frequently seems to be a disguise for the fact that no actual information. Maybe some papers in academia are trying to overstate their conclusions' complexity?
- mazelife 11y agoI dunno, taking aim at jargon seems to be central to the article's purpose based on my reading of it: "The idea that writing should be clear, concise, and low-jargon isn’t a new one—and it isn’t limited to government agencies, of course. The problem of needlessly complex writing—sometimes referred to as an 'opaque writing style'—has been explored in fields ranging from law to science. Yet in academia, unwieldy writing has become something of a protected tradition." That's pretty much the thesis of the article. Anyway, I've certainly encountered academic writing with "tortuous syntax and sentences mostly devoid of meaning," although it's a small minority of writing in my experience. This article seems to suggests it's a conspiracy to keep the public out while signaling some kind of in-group membership. But I've always let Occam's razor guide me: a much simpler explanation is that many people (and academics are by no means free from this) are not good writers.
- tertius 11y agoI'd like to add that most high impact journals limit how much you can write which causes a lot of the complexity. If the science isn't good enough then it won't get published. And if it's too simple then by default it won't get published. So now you have complex science that can be well elucidated by someone who can write well except that the word count limit is half of what you need. Complexity ensues. The journal then pushes back and says "x isn't clear enough." So then you have to make it clearer but still stay within the word count limit. Other things then need to be optimized. * My example is controlled for bad writing. Source: My wife is published in many high impact journals and continues to do so. The requirements are the bane of her existence.
- fluidcruft 11y agoI doubt it's about overstating the conclusions' complexity. It's usually more that "I have neither the time nor space to fit a thesis in this space".
- scott_s 11y agoAs others in this discussion point out, the submitted article conflates the two (tortured syntax; jargon). The other explanation for tortured syntax in all domains is simpler: most people are bad writers.
- pitt1980 11y agois that style of writing actually easier for other professors to read?
- hyperpape 11y agoGive me complicated syntax over unclear ideas any day. There are a handful of truly gifted writers who manage to write simply about complex ideas, but complicated ideas tend to force you into a really tedious process of making distinctions, or repeating which one of a set of closely related ideas you are referring to in a given clause. So yes, academic style is often more readable for professors than the alternative. That doesn't mean there isn't crap out there: that Flaubert piece does not feel like it's using jargon in a way that clarifies anything to anyone, academic or otherwise. However, it's not my area of expertise, so I can only voice a suspicion. (Not a professor, but I spent four years in grad school, originally hoping for a PhD and research position).