Why Academic Writing is so Boring
Insider language bores the outsider
Researchers, scientists, academicians marshal their facts to a higher standard, but with their neglect of the emotive power of language they often speak only to each other, their parochial words dropping like sand on a private desert.
–Sol Stein, Stein on Writing (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1995) 11.
And please don’t equate “emotive” with flowery.
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Image Credit: Kirk Livingston
conversation is an engine 
LOL! Not to mention they leverage that language to compeat with each other to better establish their authority. In these cases they aren’t using language to communicate. Who is to blame them? It is As they have been taught. But this is completely counterproductive to teaching and learning.
Marika Reinke
February 17, 2015 at 10:46 am
It’s the competing to establish authority that really bugs me. Your note of grace is good: they work in the template presented. Can’t we all just bust out?
kirkistan
February 17, 2015 at 10:51 am
Goes back to learning how to draw – doesn’t it? Learning how to see first. Unlearning is scarey business. I hope so… About busting out…it’s important.
Marika Reinke
February 17, 2015 at 10:59 pm
[…] Sol Stein quote on high-powered facts failing to invite others in reminded me that we are at our best when we […]
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