Why is Academic Writing So *Needlessly *Ridiculous?

[Metusalemi]

 

[danny23]

So im in my second year of university as a mature student and we have a week break from school, which most people use to catch up on reading. This week i decided to catch up on and also read in advance for one of my courses and it occurred to me that a lot of academic writing is just so needlessly complex in how it's written.

Take this little excerpt taken from the Atlantic expressing this very idea:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

Like why has polluting your message with language so beyond recognition that no one can understand it become the standard? It's not even for any purpose other than to impress other intellectually snooty von snootersons, It doesn't help anyone to write like that. Worse yet is that it plagues the social sciences WAY more than anything else which is so cringy as they try to sound like real scientists.

It's a dick measuring contest, that's all it is.

I have read countless pages of this type of bullshit and I want to go into my Profs office and fill the room with uppercuts.

Anyone else agree with this assessment?

As a Uni student myself right now, I'd say maybe you're just dumb?
Or rather possess low to average intelligence to fully comprehend and appreciate a very nicely written piece.
And would rather have elementary level reading to be in line with your very simple mind. If you want that then higher education isn't your thing. Academics on this level is written by intellects and you are expected to be on their level to the least.

And I bet you hate writing and would rather do typing. And rather read selective stuff material on line than read the "boring" textbooks.
Another indication of low intellect because writing is a bigger reflection of intellect than typing and copy pasting stuff you found on the internet written by someone else.



On a side note, I do agree with you on one thing. Social "Science" is junk and not real science.

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

As a Uni student myself right now, I'd say maybe you're just dumb?
Or rather possess low to average intelligence to fully comprehend and appreciate a very nicely written piece.
And would rather have elementary level reading to be in line with your very simple mind. If you want that then higher education isn't your thing. Academics on this level is written by intellects and you are expected to be on their level to the least.

And I bet you hate writing and would rather do typing. And rather read selective stuff material on line than read the "boring" textbooks.
Another indication of low intellect because writing is a bigger reflection of intellect than typing and copy pasting stuff you found on the internet written by someone else.



On a side note, I do agree with you on one thing. Social "Science" is junk and not real science.

No this would be wrong. Grades are pretty good, I prefer hand writing to typing and I'm currently doing my undergrad not post graduate studies which doesn't necessitate reading the writing from the doofus's club.

The TA's want writing that's to the point and clear yet you aren't in here making a case for their stupidity.

You do sound like you have high estrogen though. Maybe check that out?

 

[danny23]

No this would be wrong. Grades are pretty good, I prefer hand writing to typing and I'm currently doing my undergrad not post graduate studies which doesn't necessitate reading the writing from the doofus's club.

The TA's want writing that's to the point and clear yet you aren't in here making a case for their stupidity.

You do sound like you have high estrogen though. Maybe check that out?

What a well thought out answer.
I'm really impressed
Thanks for confirming what had suspected, and your last comment supports it, that you're a complete and utter imbecile.

 

[faustian]

Brevity is the soul of wit. That said, some technical writing does serve an intended professional purpose, notably legalese (the “invisible language of the law”)

 

[AznTrojan]

i use to peer review neurology articles before they publish.. there's a lot of shit that people write because of "publish or perish" mentality.. some of my comments were borderline picardish..

 

[faustian]

However, the postmodern writing style you're referring to specifically is one part a shield against proper scrutiny and one part an empty intellectual indulgence and (usually) nothing more.

This is an accurate description of postmodernism in general

 

[Rimbaud82]

The post-modern bogeyman strikes again

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

What a well thought out answer.
I'm really impressed
Thanks for confirming what had suspected, and your last comment supports it, that you're a complete and utter imbecile.

High estrogen confirmed.

 

[Fraz]

Myxomatosis

 

[ILoveALLsports]

So im in my second year of university as a mature student and we have a week break from school, which most people use to catch up on reading. This week i decided to catch up on and also read in advance for one of my courses and it occurred to me that a lot of academic writing is just so needlessly complex in how it's written.

Take this little excerpt taken from the Atlantic expressing this very idea:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

Like why has polluting your message with language so beyond recognition that no one can understand it become the standard? It's not even for any purpose other than to impress other intellectually snooty von snootersons, It doesn't help anyone to write like that. Worse yet is that it plagues the social sciences WAY more than anything else which is so cringy as they try to sound like real scientists.

It's a dick measuring contest, that's all it is.

I have read countless pages of this type of bullshit and I want to go into my Profs office and fill the room with uppercuts.

Anyone else agree with this assessment?

because this shit make them feel smarter, but it has nothing to do with being smart.

Germany is generally like that: make something as complicated as possible = you are smart (bullshit³³³³)

 

[faustian]

As a Uni student myself right now, I'd say maybe you're just dumb?
Or rather possess low to average intelligence to fully comprehend and appreciate a very nicely written piece.
And would rather have elementary level reading to be in line with your very simple mind. If you want that then higher education isn't your thing. Academics on this level is written by intellects and you are expected to be on their level to the least.

And I bet you hate writing and would rather do typing. And rather read selective stuff material on line than read the "boring" textbooks.
Another indication of low intellect because writing is a bigger reflection of intellect than typing and copy pasting stuff you found on the internet written by someone else.



On a side note, I do agree with you on one thing. Social "Science" is junk and not real science.

Ironic post is ironic

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

1) I won't speak for jei, but my first thought as far as an answer to the question "What is the purpose?" is that that's not even a question that arises. What do you mean what's the purpose? That's the language. How else would we talk? Why do BJJ guys talk about omoplatas and Brabos? Why don't they just say shoulder locks and chokes? Because that's the language. How else would they talk?

I don't agree that it's simply a difference in terminology. It also adds to the complexity but that's not quite it. No one looks at BJJ guys talking about omoplatas and Brabos and thinks "Oh that Academic speak!" If one were to hang around long enough in a conversation between two jits players or even attend some seminar and had no previous experience, the chances that they actually understood a good portion of the material isn't outside the realm of possibilities. I understand what your saying i just think you are being overly charitable in saying it's a specific language catered to an audience when what you really mean is they use their own terminology while using needlessly complex syntax. Im criticizing the Syntax used not the terminology.

2) Assuming, as your subsequent questions indicate, that I'm not creating a thread on Sherdog and am instead writing an essay for a scholarly journal - which means that I know my audience will be fellow nerds - then yes, it does help the exchange of ideas. To go back to my BJJ example, it's the same as two grapplers using commonly known and shared submission names. Film studies academics know what mise-en-scène means and quickly saying something like "the mise-en-scène was Bazinian in spirit" saves me from having to write two paragraphs on the visual style of the film because the people reading will know who André Bazin was and will know what he had to say about the visual style of French Poetic Realism and people like Jean Renoir as well as Italian Neorealism and people like Roberto Rossellini.

Once more i have a problem with the syntax used. The sentence you provided isn't really all that difficult to digest, no doubt i don't understand what the hell you are getting at but it's no different than listening to a plumber talk about my basement flooding and the necessary steps to follow in order to alleviate the issue, either way it's not really academics using a particular language to shorten their word count but rather when they do the opposite and needlessly drag things on when in reality that "the mise-en-scène was Bazinian in spirit" would have been much appreciated.

3) Beyond any "utility" concerns, there's also the pleasure - both for writers and readers - of the language itself. Super heavy jargony shit is like nails on a chalkboard to me, but I'm no hater when it comes to big vocabularies. For example - and I know @europe1's antenna is about to go up - there's a film scholar named Dave Saunders who wrote a book on Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the introduction, he sets up his "take" on Arnold and his heroic film persona. Here's one sentence to that effect:

"Schwarzenegger's most enduring role is therefore vast and mythopoeic: he is an elemental hero archetype of our age, a serendipitously 'chosen' culture-borne recapitulation of legend."

When I read shit like that, I'm like Alex listening to Beethoven. I love that shit. It's linguistic artistry. It bridges the gap between art and information, it makes it a joy to read the same way that watching Jacare work his magic on the ground is a treat for a hardcore fan to watch while for a casual it can be confounding if not obnoxious.

Yea im not a hater when it comes to big vocabularies either but that's not the issue here. I have been reading philisophical texts since i was 16 and i can appreciate linguistic artistry but i would never confuse whats below or compare it to other forms of linguistic artistry.

"The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation."

This isn't a specific language, this certainly isn't beautiful to read, in no way does it seem like "linguistic artistry" and more than anything it's just a pain in the ass to read.

 

[Iroh]

It's a shallow and masturbatory manner of intellectualization.

 

[phoenixikki]

I think that it is insecurity bolstered by arrogance and pride.

Agree. And also overcompensating because they're are mediocre professors. 99% of the people who work in an University are not going to win a nobel prize, and 90% of them aren't going to write something remotely usual for their entire career.

 

[Spoken]

As an academic, I'd say that roughly 10% of the major writing is indecipherable. A vast majority of it is hard and the average person wouldn't grasps the details well, but most of it isn't ridiculous.
Some fields are denser than others though, I suppose. Social theory and certain brands of philosophy are probably the hardest.

Edit: of that 10%, I'd say .01% of it comes from relevant writers. A lot of people find it ridiculous, and some of it is, but when you meet these people and see how they think, you realize that the command they have on language is just on another level... And that is an extension of the command they have on the concepts of their field.

 

[Prefect]

Post-academia writing can be quite taxing, because in many cases we have to write to our audience and not above them. Sometimes we don't get the luxury of speaking with our own voices if the concern (as it has been in the past, according to a former editor of mine) is that they won't understand what we're trying to convey to them. I have had to dumb my writing style down on occasion not in a patronizing way or because I was being too esoteric, but because if readers' eyes glaze over, they're less likely to stick around. It's a different world, writing professionally vs. writing in an academic context.

That said, the ability to express oneself in multiple ways is a beneficial skill in the real world, and that's the difference I was referencing earlier in my undergraduate vs. graduate school experiences. When I attended law school, I had to throw out a good portion of that air of academic sophistication out the window, since a lot of my future writing would be tailored towards clients or other attorneys in different fields. I no longer could assume that everyone could pick up on what I was putting down, and that's fair, because legalese is a jargon that even I do not care for. There is an art form of writing at a higher level, and we can get a great deal of satisfaction writing the way we personally prefer to write, but it all goes back to knowing our audience. We had multiple courses solely devoted to learning that craft, and I won't deny that we did learn a few obfuscation techniques along the way. Occasionally, complex and heavily technical writing has its advantages, even if it's used just as an indicator to demonstrate our worth and knowledge to the clients.

There's value in opacity. It's often human nature to assume because you cannot understand what someone is saying, that they clearly know what they are talking about. @Loiosh said it well.

There is a quote that is attributed to Einstein that "if you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't really understand it". When I see fluffed up writing and opaqueness, my first reaction is that the writer doesn't understand his material Yeah, there are terms that are subject specific but in a large part, bad writing stems from a lack of understanding. Terms should only be used when their agreed upon definition and use simplifies the structure of everything else. I write procedures and no one will read my procedues ,including engineers, if my writing hurts their head.

 

[Omegaboy13]

We’ve gone to more plain speak and plain writing in law enforcement. 10 codes and “cop speak” in reporting has gone the way of the dinosaur. However, I believe everyone should have a well rounded vocabulary. It takes a long while to explain things in plain dumbed down speaking that one word can sometimes explain clearly. I’m not for making society dumber or easier, which essentially are the same thing.

 

[Diogenes of Sinope]

So im in my second year of university as a mature student and we have a week break from school, which most people use to catch up on reading. This week i decided to catch up on and also read in advance for one of my courses and it occurred to me that a lot of academic writing is just so needlessly complex in how it's written.

Take this little excerpt taken from the Atlantic expressing this very idea:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

Like why has polluting your message with language so beyond recognition that no one can understand it become the standard? It's not even for any purpose other than to impress other intellectually snooty von snootersons, It doesn't help anyone to write like that. Worse yet is that it plagues the social sciences WAY more than anything else which is so cringy as they try to sound like real scientists.

It's a dick measuring contest, that's all it is.

I have read countless pages of this type of bullshit and I want to go into my Profs office and fill the room with uppercuts.

Anyone else agree with this assessment?

It's actually important and influence your casual speech. It changes the way you present discussions and arguments, demanding that you have valid sources backing them.

 

[superpunch]

Here's something I was just reading:

"But, though the descent of that royal pretender, traced back as it had been to the lowest mob of common experience, ought to have rendered her claims very suspicious, yet, as that genealogy turned out in reality to be a false invention, the old queen (metaphysic) continued to maintain her claims, everything fell back into the old rotten dogmatism, and the contempt from which metaphysical science was to have been rescued, remained the same as ever."

This guy is considered by philosophy dudes to be one of the most intelligent and profound philosophers of all time, like a top 3 guy.

Everything he just wrote could be paraphrased into more concise language without losing any meaning. There's no reason that needs to be 1 giant sentence with 20 commas. Interestingly, I can write exactly like this -- when I'm really high. It's not a sign of intelligence. It's a sign of a jumbled up thought process resembling someone on drugs or mentally ill.

People write like that because if their thoughts were more easily legible, it'd be easier to find errors in their thoughts.