I'm slagging no particular profession off when I say this, so I hope no-one takes offence, but why do we need to make research so complicated and high-brow so that it means only the few can actually appreciate and partake in it? Take philosophy, without its bombastic and verbose nature, it wouldn't be nearly as complicated. When I started my PhD it was like learning an alien language but having been immersed in it for a while, I feel as if a lot of what I do is just a bit too pretentious. There's just no need. It's akin to wrapping a malteser in fancy, gold leafed paper. It's still a malteser. If my writing has matured in anyway, a big if, it is because I don't use big fancy words and ridiculously complicated way of explaining what are essentially simple concepts, once you have shovelled all the rubbish off.
So instead of, I am making a patient reported outcome measure that has the demonstrable measurement properties of construct validity and internal consistency..yada...yada. I say I'm making a reliable questionnaire that has proof for what it is supposed to measure. By doing this, I can increase participation from equally intelligent members of the public who don't happen to have swallowed a few textbooks full of big words with my future research.
Obviously, I understand that some of us use extremely complicated equipment that can take many years to learn, but I like to think of things like this as the few exceptions to the rule.

Yeah, I saw a paper recently that was all about literary adaptations on tv and the academic was all gushing with his discovery that some people on a blog had come to the same conclusions he had, and they weren't even officially clever, or anything. He had a special word for people who discuss flm and tv literary adaptations but are not academics! I can't remember it now but it was very long and latin sounding.

I agree with you in a lot of ways Wal. My thesis involves a bit of philosophy and sometimes I'll puzzle over a concept for months before realizing 'Oh! Is that it?!' Philosophy's a difficult one though because a lot of philosophers get people's backs up for being verbose and using words in funny ways but then I think sometimes they are playing with language, trying out its different possibilities. Particularly with the massive intersections that have gone on recently between literature and literary theory and philosophy.

Bit of a tangent there. But overall, yes, you speak truth and I try my best to keep my writing clear, which involves not being scared of the dreaded 'I'.

Good points Wal,

I would agree with you. It seems that many concepts and theories are necessarily complicated, perhaps as a result of using very difficult words and long sentences.

The more I have been confronted with academic writing, the more I appreciate the authors who write in a simple way but manage to get the point across.

As such I try to write in a similar way.8-)

Oops,

that should be "unnecessarily complicated"
;-)

yes, I often find myself overthinking things, spending hours trying to understand it and then just realising 'oh was that all!'. I also think this is to blame for the 'sound bite' nature of how science and academic work is reported.

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One would not expect to understand the highly specialised language, methods, and theories of quantum mechanics, molecular genetics, or neurology. Nobody would argue that these fields don't need intellectual constructs that are widely understood by professionals in the field and yet obscure to those outside it. This is obviously part of a process of professionalisation and protectionalism BUT also a reflection that there are some things that are not immediately transparent and cannot be made easily intelligible without education and time. Nobody would expect to understand the finer points of theoretical cosmology or other fields of the sciences - why then should other areas of cultural life like literature and history be somehow easily intelligible (i.e. reducible to basic English or any other language vocab without a loss of nuanced argument and theorisation)

For example, how is it possible for example, to give an historical account of the Renassiance reception of Aristotle or Enlightenment notions of hereditary, or of Victorian hysteria without using a vocabularly or theoretical framework? These are complex things that cannot often be expressed in "plain English". Nobody expects to read Marx or Foucault et al. and have the words somehow spring off the page and make sense. It takes time and training. And there is neccesary complication.

Of course, academics should be able to communicate their work to broader audiences in a reasonably straightforward way - but there certainly needs to be room for highly specialised vocabularly and thought processes within professional fields. These form the intellectual hardware we need to think with - and take years of education to develop - they don't just happen not can they be somehow seperated from what might seem a more straightforward way to express an idea. Without the demanding vocab and theory and ways of thinking it is improbable that a more simple way of understanding would have emerged i.e decades of high level mathematical, astronomical, and physical work that nobody understands outside those circles goes into the potted theory that makes up a 45 minute episode of Horizon. The complex neccesarily goes before the more simplified explanation.


Of course there is plenty of waffle and dressing up essentially simple or hollow ideas in "Emperor's Clothing" - and these should be weeded out. But there are many ideas within academia that can not - and should not be simplified because they then loose some of their rigour, nuance, and explanative power.

Also, I have never understood the antipathy towards a dictionary or thesaurus. Nobody expects to understand every word in their mother tongue or adopted language and should be open to enhancing it if required. There is no shame in needing to look up a word and then internalise its meaning so that you can reproduce it and the idea it communicates again!!

sometimes it is necessary to use the jargon of the subject, for example you might want to refer to a scientific law, but if this is used it should be used with restraint. Often I feel that the language is used as a 'look at me, I'm so clever and my points are so intellectually challenging that only those who can also understand these words should read this, the rest of you, well never mind, just get back to your knitting'  (the knitting this was just something that sprang to mind I KNOW knitting can be complicated too... and has its own language...and is challenging.. and...well you get my drift) I find people like Marx a pain to read, and unnecessarily complicated, yes, you can read it at surface level, but to find what they really mean takes ages. Those sentences that go on and on, so you forget what they were on about at the beginning, the use of phrases which I have to look up in the dictionary every single time - is it only me, or do others find that they have to look up the meaning of some words several times, its like the goldfish thing - I've now bought an address book and made my own dictionary of 'most used words and phrases', which saves a lot of time. some do say that in order to be accepted academically it is necessary to use the 'correct' terminology, but this will limit the readership and whilst it might be approved by the gentlemen' s club, if it something that should really be out there with the real world, then to make it unintelligible is defeating the object, it is no good coming up with some profound revelation if those who might be affected by it cannot access the material because of the language. It is also a way of keeping the peasants at bay whilst proving their own intellectual ability.

It's interesting you used Marx as an example there Joyce, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to keep the peasants at bay;-)

I'm really not so sure about that one, not in the way he writes anyway, the writing appears to be more for the 'intellectuals' of the time rather than for those people who are the subject of his work. As I mentioned somewhere before, when I said I was reading Capital, someone said ' which capital is that about then, London?' Makes you think

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
If you haven't already seen it, definitely worth a look on this point!
:-)

God that's depressing. If I handed that in to my supervisor he'd probably be thrilled!

HALLELUJAH! My point exactly.

*Leftie Rant Warning*

A few years ago I had an attack of guilt (brought on by talking to a friend who was researching cures for fatal illness - sorry, not very science-y of me) about working in the creative industry. Producing entertainment? Yes. Producing something beneficial to others? Hmm, not exactly. So I went into the family business - I started teaching. Fast forward to now, and I'm doing a PhD. Sometimes the utterly unnecessary (my opinion, obv) use of high falutin' language just makes me mad as it goes against my philosophy that education should be accessible to all. Being dyslexic probably informs this a bit too. Urgh, I'd better stop here otherwise this will be the longest post, evah.

Walter Benjamin is brilliant. He uses language anyone with a grasp of the English language can understand. There may be a few words to look up, but they are not put there out of a laziness which draws on technical shorthand, or gratuitously.

In fact, I think I may read some of his stuff for fun over the Easter holidays...


Luckily, my sup is into straighforward, accessible prose. I do use big words sometimes, but only if they will really help the writing in its flow and meaning. I also try to use beautiful words (beauty and accesibility, in my writing, are the ideal, maybe one day I will get there).

It's such a beautiful day where I am! Am gong out to enjoy it: bumppphhh to the lectures I have to write...

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double posting again... ????