Wanted: Clearer academic writing

Hit the books: Befuddled prose is becoming an epidemic among denizens of ivory towers and it serves neither them nor the public well

It’s long been a challenge for some academics to stay connected to the so-called real world. And the problem may be growing worse.

Part of the reason is bad writing, like the sample in the befuddling sentence above.

A few scholars are beginning to stand up for stylish academic writing; however, Michael Billig and Helen Sword are challenging fellow academics to write more clearly and to have more to say — because the two are linked.

They’re raising alarm bells about the poor writing, in particular in social sciences like education, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology and literary studies.

Billig and Sword say academics write poorly, using long sentences crammed with vague abstract nouns, because they’re trying to hide that they don’t have much of value to say.

If the state of your writing is bad, so is the state of your thinking, Billig maintains in Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Science (Cambridge University Press).

Too many academics use technical jargon to mystify and obfuscate, as a cover for banalities. Even those with something valuable to teach often struggle to find language that would get their message across.

“The work of the professor becomes consequential only as it’s understood by others,” writes Sword in Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard University Press). If virtually no one comprehends your opaque writing, suggests Sword, your ideas don’t matter.

With the argument against bad academic writing now on the table, I’ll toss in three quick qualifiers.

One is that some academics do know how to write well.

A second is that it is sometimes impossible to avoid difficultto-understand prose. That can occur when working on original ideas, or swimming in super-specialized technical waters, such as bio-chemistry and physics.

A third reminder is that no profession is immune to bad writing. While academics can over-stress ambiguity, cold data and abstraction, journalists, for instance, can rely too much on anecdotes, heated vocabulary and over-simplification.

Indeed, journalists and academics could learn a few things from each other. More on that later.

Writing badly to succeed

In the meantime, if we can agree a great deal of academic writing is turgid, incomprehensible and oddly bureaucratic, it’s worth figuring out why.

Let’s ask Sword, who researches academic writing at the University of Auckland.

“Why do universities — institutions dedicated to creativity, research innovation, collegial interchange, high standards of excellence and the education of a diverse and ever-changing population of students — churn out so much uninspiring, cookie-cutter prose?” asks Sword.

Many professors claim journal editors want dull writing. And Sword says in her book that explanations about the rise of poor writing “range from the sympathetic (stylistic conformity offers a measure of comfort and security in an otherwise cutthroat academic universe) … to the conspiratory (jargon functions like a secret handshake, a signal to our peers that we belong to the same elite insiders’ club).”

Billig, a psychologist, makes the case that increasing competitiveness in higher education is pushing young scholars to write poorly to please their supervisors. That’s why his book is sardonically titled Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences.

Unfortunately, the British scholar is not kidding in his title. Most people, naturally, want to learn to write well, Billig says. But, in the social sciences, “you have to study long and hard to write badly.”

Billig and Sword constantly hear masters and PhD students complaining they can’t begin to write well, with style, until they attain the security of professorial tenure.

Along those lines, I’ve noted the most expressive academics are often those nearing the end of their careers; they’re finally taking risks because they no longer worry about offending conformist peers.

What are the signs of bad writing?

• Jargon: Sometimes it’s necessary to use technical words, but words like “apperception” become unhelpful jargon when they’re used mostly to keep out outsiders. Other bits of jargon, like “outsourcing,” hide offensive realities.

• Verbs as nouns: Billig dislikes academic “nouniness,” the tendency to turn virtually every idea into an abstract noun. Billig names scores of over-used nouns, like mediatization, re-ethnicification, deindividuation and, especially, reification. He argues against making verbs into nouns with suffixes such as “ization,” “ication” or “ism.”

Billig is correct when he says such nouns turn vague concepts into concrete things when they’re not.

An over-reliance on abstract nouns helps academics avoid dealing with real people and actual processes, Billig says.

For what it’s worth, one of my pet-peeve abstract nouns is the increasingly common “essentialism.”

• Passive language: Academics, like everyone else, need to avoid passive sentences when possible, because they include less information than sentences with active verbs, which require (often human) actors as subjects.

‘ If the nomocentric principle is correct, then there are as many true backward counterfactual conditionals as there are forward counter-factional conditionals.’ - A University Professor

• Not much to say: In academic circles, the pressure “to publish or perish” is not an empty threat. Billig maintains somewhat ruthlessly that a cause of bad writing is that many academics don’t have much worthwhile to say. Academics, he says, often use jargon, nouns and passive sentences because they’re hiding that they’re just repeating platitudes.

• Self- censorship: This is another danger in academia. It’s not just politicians and business leaders who cover their butts with euphemisms; academics also default to bureaucratic language. Bureaucratese is designed to say less, not more.

Use verbs, plain language

There are many ways to avoid bad writing.

Without turning this into a mini-style manual, I’ll just mention that Sword persuasively argues academics should use more anecdotes, illustrations and case studies in their writing.

In addition to stressing the value of verbs and plain language, Sword also recommends academics employ more personal pronouns, such as “I,” “you,” “he,” “she” and “they.” These approaches make writing come alive.

It’s crucial to model stylish scholarly writers, too. Billig and Sword cite William James, Richard Dawkins, Peter Berger and Hannah Arendt. I can add more, regardless of whether I agree with them, including JeanPaul Sartre, Charles Birch, John Kenneth Galbraith, Deborah Tannen and Jane Jacobs.

Why is the writing style of academics important? Funded largely by taxpayers, scholars are called upon to communicate better across disciplines and with the public; otherwise they become irrelevant; secluded.

To that end, I encourage more journalists and academics to work together. We need to better connect “town and gown.” How many times have I wished some journalist had called up a scholar who could add an informed, alternative view on a contentious social issue?

How many times have I wished an academic with something to say was more effective, and brave, about joining the public fray? I’m definitely not one of those journalists who dismiss academics as “pointy heads.”

On the contrary, journalists, and the large audiences they reach, need scholars. Academics who know how to engage audiences outside their narrow fields can bring the gift of enhanced rationality, originality and depth.

Dare I add, however, academics could also take more cues from journalists.

They could join us more often on the gritty front lines of research, more often enter debate on the burning issues of our day — and, most importantly, they could write more concisely, plainly and actively (using actual verbs!).