Scholars in the softer fields spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say. They dress up the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook (Pinker, 2014).<\/p>\n
Most academic writing, in contrast, is a blend of two styles. The first is practical style, in which the writer\u2019s goal is to satisfy a reader\u2019s need for a particular kind of information. The second is a style that Thomas and Turner call self-conscious, relativistic, ironic, or postmodern, in which \u201cthe writer\u2019s chief, if unstated,
\nconcern is to escape being convicted of philosophical na\u00efvet\u00e9 about his own enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to see why academics fall into self-conscious style. Their goal is not so much communication as self-presentation\u2014an overriding defensiveness against any impression that they may\u00a0be slacker than their peers in hewing to the norms of the guild.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scholars in the softer fields spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say. They dress up the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook (Pinker, 2014). Most academic writing, in contrast, is a blend of two styles. The first is… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ardian.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}