Things that cause bad writing

This is really about academics trying to write, and why it often becomes so full of jargon. This first post is going to be a simple list. My plan is to flesh things out with seperate posts at a later stage.

1st reason for difficult language: Trying to sneak yourself to academic status.

2nd reason for difficult language: Not knowing exactly what you’re saying and hiding behind grand words.

3rd reason for difficult language: Being on a learning curve – still searching for the right words and images to convey your thoughts clearly. (The nice version of the 2nd reason…)

4th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is not specific enough.

5th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is too politicized.

6th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is what is being analysed.

Reason number 4 is often the excuse, isn´t it? I think number 3 is the interesting one. It conveys to me that when an idea is better understood, it can be expressed more simply. This also explains why cutting-edge research often is difficult to read: No-one has thought these thoughts before, so we are still on the learning curve of making them easier to think and say.

Which reminds me: Sometimes a text is difficult to understand, even if it is written in plain language – it could be because it is saying something new and different, something requires the mind to change direction for a while and think differently.

antropologi.info - anthropology in the news (new) Says:

juni 6, 2007 at 12:20 am

Six reasons for bad academic writing

Sociologist Lars Laird Eriksen has written an interesting blog post about why academic texts often are so badly written. When academics try to write, it often becomes so full of jargon and it’s a turture for the reader. So why is this so?

Here’s…

Bad writing in academic circles! « Entertaining Research Says:

juni 6, 2007 at 1:36 am

[...] writing in academic circles! Laird lists six reasons for bad writing in academic circles (via Anthropologi.info which gives a few more links too on the topic): 1st reason for difficult [...]

bob ashley Says:

juni 7, 2007 at 12:02 am

Of course, the criticism itself, “bad writing” is mounted from the conceits, biases, and myths of the “plain language” crusade. It’s as self-installed as were the bad old male gender biases which dominate western history.

Which is to say, there is no such thing as bad writing, really, but only ways of seeing it that way. By the same token, there is no such thing as “good” writing. Let’s face, even Gore Vidal wouldn’t know how to write to the gashouse gang. He wouldn’t know how to spit words right.

Many of carps and crabs against so-called “academic writing” I’ve read provide some of the dullest, most colorless, pompously impatient text of all. We have to eye it like would an untrustworthy dog.

Discourse analysts tell us that the nature of a perculiar text shifts, modulates, evolves between different home “registers”, or what Stanley Fish dubbed “interpretative communities”.

bob

larslaird Says:

juni 7, 2007 at 12:23 am

If I read bob correctly, the point is that a text is read differently by different audiences, and quality assessments differ. This gives a text chances of new readings and fresh approaches even though the audience is surprising, or in a different place or time.

I don´t see “self-installed” as a cricitism – voicing your opinion and judgement is a good thing, to be valued even though other people disagree.

I also agree that a fundamentalist approach to simple language makes it more difficult to challenge powerful ideas that get their strength through everyday language.

I even go so far as saying that difficult has its important function as a stage on a learning curve.

But writing in jargon and with unneccesary complexity is not an end in itself – it is a means to the end of better understanding. One of the benefits of better understanding, is the more robust, succinct presentation of new and surprising thought.