Incoherent Style of Academic Writing

[apl68]

Today, I worked on manuscript revisions. One reviewer complained our language was "too casual" and "not academic enough." I guess we need to make our language more confusing to the reader! Maybe I should cite this thread in my response to reviewer comments. Just kidding...

Something like that happened to me in one of my MLS classes.  When I was in a PhD program in history, we were told to avoid "clanking machinery" prose--stuff like beginning a paper with "This paper will demonstrate..." and all the passive-voice phrasing seen in so much academic prose.  When I went to library school, I was essentially told to make my machinery clank.  So I did.

That's one thing I've always appreciated about academic history.  Although some historians are capable of producing prose as deadly as you'll see anywhere, most of them seem to understand that even academic history is still ultimately about telling a story.

[Myword]

Academic writing is and has been notoriously dull, boring, to the educated readers and professionals. If it is written in a less technical language, it is viewed as unrigorous, simplified
and lower reputation, as if the writer is unprofessional.
Sometimes writing clearly does not pay off. Many authors I read use humorous or pop culture examples that are going too far the other way. They do not help the arguments and look frivolous. I commented on this on another post and have criticized it in a paper. One answer is to use the footnotes or endnotes for this. I suppose if the paper is strong and tightly written,an occasional quip or casual aside does not matter.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Something like that happened to me in one of my MLS classes.  When I was in a PhD program in history, we were told to avoid "clanking machinery" prose--stuff like beginning a paper with "This paper will demonstrate..." and all the passive-voice phrasing seen in so much academic prose.  When I went to library school, I was essentially told to make my machinery clank.  So I did.

I find that some clanking machinery is extremely useful.
"This paper will demonstrate..." (and its equivalents)
1) forces writer to actually formulate what the article is about
2) helps reader during quick scan of the article to find relevant segment (as opposed to deciphering objective from multiple paragraphs of text)

[Ruralguy]

I agree Durch. I just feel that I can attain these goals without always seeming like a robot wrote my paper for me.

[Caracal]

Something like that happened to me in one of my MLS classes.  When I was in a PhD program in history, we were told to avoid "clanking machinery" prose--stuff like beginning a paper with "This paper will demonstrate..." and all the passive-voice phrasing seen in so much academic prose.  When I went to library school, I was essentially told to make my machinery clank.  So I did.

I find that some clanking machinery is extremely useful.
"This paper will demonstrate..." (and its equivalents)
1) forces writer to actually formulate what the article is about
2) helps reader during quick scan of the article to find relevant segment (as opposed to deciphering objective from multiple paragraphs of text)

Sure, but you can still do that in a more engaging way. "I will argue" is much better than "this paper will demonstrate." However, audience and conventions do matter. Historians think of themselves as engaging with a larger audience-even when they clearly aren't. In other fields, the assumption is that you are just talking to people in the field and that you aren't trying to make your prose particularly interesting or engaging.

That's sort of the problem with all of these discussions of jargon. When I occasionally read a STEM paper, I often find there are lots of terms I don't fully understand and things presented in language I don't find particularly clear. That isn't the fault of the authors-I'm reading something that is intended for a specialized audience that I'm not part of.

I'd agree that the important question is whether the use of specialized terms is actually helpful in communicating with others in the field about things of interest or if it is just a way of making the author feel important and obscuring the actual arguments.

[Kron3007]

Something like that happened to me in one of my MLS classes.  When I was in a PhD program in history, we were told to avoid "clanking machinery" prose--stuff like beginning a paper with "This paper will demonstrate..." and all the passive-voice phrasing seen in so much academic prose.  When I went to library school, I was essentially told to make my machinery clank.  So I did.

I find that some clanking machinery is extremely useful.
"This paper will demonstrate..." (and its equivalents)
1) forces writer to actually formulate what the article is about
2) helps reader during quick scan of the article to find relevant segment (as opposed to deciphering objective from multiple paragraphs of text)

Sure, but you can still do that in a more engaging way. "I will argue" is much better than "this paper will demonstrate." However, audience and conventions do matter. Historians think of themselves as engaging with a larger audience-even when they clearly aren't. In other fields, the assumption is that you are just talking to people in the field and that you aren't trying to make your prose particularly interesting or engaging.

That's sort of the problem with all of these discussions of jargon. When I occasionally read a STEM paper, I often find there are lots of terms I don't fully understand and things presented in language I don't find particularly clear. That isn't the fault of the authors-I'm reading something that is intended for a specialized audience that I'm not part of.

I'd agree that the important question is whether the use of specialized terms is actually helpful in communicating with others in the field about things of interest or if it is just a way of making the author feel important and obscuring the actual arguments.

Yes, there are times that jargon is helpful or even necessary, but there are many other situations where simpler language could be used just as effectively and make the writing more accessible.  In general I think it is best to use plain language and avoid specialized terms when possible.  This is especially true in many STEM fields where we are trying to communicate globally, often with people operating in a second (or third...) language.  There is no need to make the text more confusing than necessary.

I would also argue that these so called conventions are only there if we (as scientists) agree with them.  For example, I was always taught to write in third person for scientific manuscripts, but this is shifting.  Some of the biggest journals even require the use of first person now.  So, these conventions that force us to speak in the passive voice and avoid any sense of humanity are not cast in stone and change over time.  As I mentioned, much of Darwin's writings are written in a very personal manner that make them quite enjoyable to read.

     

[Puget]

I would also argue that these so called conventions are only there if we (as scientists) agree with them.  For example, I was always taught to write in third person for scientific manuscripts, but this is shifting.  Some of the biggest journals even require the use of first person now.  So, these conventions that force us to speak in the passive voice and avoid any sense of humanity are not cast in stone and change over time.  As I mentioned, much of Darwin's writings are written in a very personal manner that make them quite enjoyable to read.

Yes, we've mostly successfully made this shift in psychology. I still occasionally see "It was hypothesized that. . ." and always want to ask who's hypothesis was this, if not you, the authors'? Is there some mysterious force in the universe that produces hypotheses all on its own?

[marshwiggle]

I would also argue that these so called conventions are only there if we (as scientists) agree with them.  For example, I was always taught to write in third person for scientific manuscripts, but this is shifting.  Some of the biggest journals even require the use of first person now.  So, these conventions that force us to speak in the passive voice and avoid any sense of humanity are not cast in stone and change over time.  As I mentioned, much of Darwin's writings are written in a very personal manner that make them quite enjoyable to read.

Yes, we've mostly successfully made this shift in psychology. I still occasionally see "It was hypothesized that. . ." and always want to ask who's hypothesis was this, if not you, the authors'? Is there some mysterious force in the universe that produces hypotheses all on its own?

The one thing I have pointed out to students is that the point of the traditional use of the passive voice is to not make the experimentors a distraction. So, *"Bob combined the chemicals..." implicitly suggests that somehow it matters that Bob did it. So moving away from the passive voice isn't a big deal if it can be done in a way that doesn't unintentionally draw attention to meaningless details.


*If instead it said something like "As soon as the chemicals were combined, ...." it would have more of an active "flow" without introducing the extraneous detail of the experimentor's name. Even the passive voice can be much less stodgy if it's used well.

[Cheerful]

So, *"Bob combined the chemicals..."

*If instead it said something like "As soon as the chemicals were combined, ...."

The name isn't relevant.  "We combined the chemicals..." or "After I combined the chemicals..."

Nice and concise.  Four or five words vs. seven words in your suggested revision.

[Hibush]

I still occasionally see "It was hypothesized that. . ." and always want to ask who's hypothesis was this, if not you, the authors'? Is there some mysterious force in the universe that produces hypotheses all on its own?

A remarkably large part of graduate education seems to be persuading students that they should stop searching for that mysterious force and start developing testable hypotheses.

Writing out those hypotheses in clear language is a challenging but tremendously valuable process.

[Puget]

I still occasionally see "It was hypothesized that. . ." and always want to ask who's hypothesis was this, if not you, the authors'? Is there some mysterious force in the universe that produces hypotheses all on its own?

A remarkably large part of graduate education seems to be persuading students that they should stop searching for that mysterious force and start developing testable hypotheses.

Writing out those hypotheses in clear language is a challenging but tremendously valuable process.

This is so true!
Also persuading them that "it hasn't been studied" is not the same thing as "it should be studied".

[AvidReader]

The name isn't relevant.  "We combined the chemicals..." or "After I combined the chemicals..."

Nice and concise.  Four or five words vs. seven words in your suggested revision.

"Once combined, the chemicals . . ."? But only if the chemicals actually do something (say, instead of the glassware shattering). I think you are just updating "as soon as," really, because "Once/After the chemicals were combined" is just as brief as the second example above.

In contrast, if this were one of my students, it would be "In the novel* Bob combines the chemicals because he wants to be ironic. The author intends to show his** deep sadness, because he uses the word 'chemicals.' Irony has been an important literary term since the beginning of time and is used in almost every novel, especially this one, where it is in all of Bob's actions."

*any writing=novel; **ambiguous on purpose, because the students always do, so why not?

To return to the current theme of the thread, I always imagined passive voice was meant to describe the actions as neutrally as possible. My idea of a laboratory experiment (not being a scientist) is that any scientist who performs the actions described should come up with the same result, so I think of "after the chemicals were combined" as allowing anyone to do the combining.

AR.

[fizzycist]

Except "We" didn't combine the chemicals. One of us did. And then maybe another of us did in a similar manner later on. And maybe even once they were combined by a random rotation student who didn't do anything after and is only listed in the acknowledgements.

I don't love the passive voice but I kinda can't stand excessive use of We either. When describing a lab protocol I think passive is just fine.

[kaysixteen]

A question for forumites who were educated and/or employed in academic circles in non-Anglophone countries, how is the 'coherence', etc., of the academic writing styles in your countries?

[ergative]

I still occasionally see "It was hypothesized that. . ." and always want to ask who's hypothesis was this, if not you, the authors'? Is there some mysterious force in the universe that produces hypotheses all on its own?

A remarkably large part of graduate education seems to be persuading students that they should stop searching for that mysterious force and start developing testable hypotheses.

Writing out those hypotheses in clear language is a challenging but tremendously valuable process.

This is so true!
Also persuading them that "it hasn't been studied" is not the same thing as "it should be studied".

All of this! I remember a very formative moment in my PhD studies when my advisor had to explain to me that the answer to 'why did you choose this particular variable as a factor in your experiment?' should not be 'because I've already studied [variable] and like it and know it pretty well.'