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Academics write well? Have you heard of the word 'academese'? Honestly, I suspect a PhD brainwashes you into becoming a bad writer. These days I'm impressed by
by tormeh 11y ago
Academics write well? Have you heard of the word 'academese'? Honestly, I suspect a PhD brainwashes you into becoming a bad writer. These days I'm impressed by any academic who's not a horrible writer.
- reuven 11y agoThere are several types of academic writers, for sure. Some are amazingly clear in their writing. Those people are fantastic, and really do help to advance the spread of new ideas. But some (many) use long words and convoluted sentences, seemingly for no reason other than to make their reader feel less intelligent. I know someone in the latter category; while he's a very bright guy, I haven't the foggiest idea what he's saying in any of his papers. Which does indeed demonstrate that a PhD doesn't necessarily make you a great writer. I had been writing professionally for a decade before I started my PhD, and this had far more to do with my clarity of writing than any feedback I got in grad school. And of course, don't forget the gibberish, automatically generated papers that were accepted: http://www.ibtimes.com/fake-research-papers-how-did-more-120-gibberish-computer-generated-studies-get-published-1558725 http://www.ibtimes.com/fake-research-papers-how-did-more-120...
- amelius 11y agoWell, give me academese over patentese anytime :)
- dgacmu 11y agoThe "academese" tends to be worse in the softer fields, and isn't as bad in computer science. A large part of my job is helping students express themselves clearly -- it's part of learning to think clearly. That's not to say that all of our papers are shining examples of clarity, but they should aspire to be so.
- grayclhn 11y agoBeing able to write something coherent quickly about a very technical subject is really, really hard. If someone needs to use "academese" to get there, power to them.
- thaw13579 11y agoMost academic writing isn't meant for public consumption--papers are communications between researchers, so the jargon etc. is a more of a convenience than "bad writing". Good researchers can talk very plainly about complex things, though this usually happens in talks and conversation.
- norswap 11y agoTotally agree. The reason is simple: you can't count on the goodwill of your audience, you have to write in a defensive manner expecting an adversarial audience (at least the reviewers, probably the people you have in mind when you write your paper; but possibly beyond). See this: http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Academics-Writing-Stinks/148989 http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Academics-Writing-Stinks/14...