Why Academics Stink at Writing
Steven Pinker,
How-to-Geek,
Sept 30, 2014
"Fog comes easily to writers," writes Steven Pinker, "it's the clarity that requires practice." I completely agree. In this article bemoaning the obscurity of academic writing and offering some possible causes for the phenomenon, Pinker hits the nail on the head over and over again. I am not a Pinker fan, but this article may just make me one. Who cares about the nature of cognition, if we can agree on the problems with academic writing?!? " Even scientists, with their commitment to seeing the world as it is, are a bit postmodern.... It's just that good writers don't flaunt that anxiety in every passage they write; they artfully conceal it for clarity's sake."
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