We are all guilty of it: getting caught up in academic jargon or using words that only a handful of people would recognize at first glance. It’s not surprising, because we generally write for people just like us – people with PhDs engaged in similar disciplinary specialties and literatures. We expect that our readers are in the club, and possess the same knowledge that we do. When we write in an overly complex or obscure manner, however, we limit our audience and decrease our opportunities to broadly communicate our ideas.
There can be multiple motivations for academic writers’ reliance on complex or obscure words. For instance, you might rely on jargon in order to signal your insider status. You want your reader to know that you’ve read the important texts and studied the arguments. You may be writing for an outlet where jargon is expected. Perhaps your complicated prose is an attempt to indicate your level of intellect. You’re a smarty-pants, and you have the obscure words to prove it. Or maybe you’ve just been immersed in a literature for so long that these words no longer seem obscure or complex to you.
The first step in dealing with jargon is thinking about your reading audience. As a writer, you should never think you are writing only for yourself. We write for an audience of readers that is both known and unknown to us. For every piece you write, from blog post to book manuscript, you should ask yourself “who is reading this?” Is it a group of insiders? Or, is it a broader audience who does not possess the same expertise as you? Finally, think about who you want your audience to be. Who is the ideal audience? Structure your prose with them in mind.
Writing in a clear, straightforward manner does not mean that you are “dumbing down” your analysis, or that your reasoning is any less sophisticated. Indeed, the ability to explain your argument in simple terms is a good indication that you understand what you’re talking about, because you are using your own words instead of merely repeating the words of other scholars. Your intent as a writer (I hope!) is to engage with a broader intellectual community. So do it! Take a step back from your writing, examine it the way a non-expert would, and make the necessary adjustments. The benefit is two-fold: you’ll expand your audience, and you’ll push yourself to think of you work from a new perspective.
Here are a few steps you can take to make your writing more accessible.
Read outside your discipline, or even your genre: Pick up a newspaper, magazine, or novel. Look at how the author develops her sentences and paragraphs. Pay close attention to the terms used and how the author conveys complex ideas with simple language. Personally, I think The Atlantic is a good example of a publication featuring articles with ideas that are both clear and sophisticated.
Find an example of good writing within your discipline: I can’t tell you how many times I read selections from Saskia Sassen’s Global Cities in my early years of graduate school. Was I ever a student of globalization studies? No, but I thought she wrote in a clear yet rigorous manner that I wanted to emulate. Seek out multiple texts to model your writing on, especially in the early years of graduate school. As your own writing evolves, you will take what works and adapt it to fit your writing style.
Find a writing partner outside of your specialty or discipline: A reader who is unfamiliar with the jargon you take for granted will push you to explain yourself and be clearer with your prose. Also, making yourself aware of the conventions in other disciplines – and how arbitrary they may seem to you – will empower you to be more critical of the conventions in your discipline. You might even gain exposure to writing styles and techniques to incorporate into your writing.
Limit the number of polysyllabic words in your sentences: On a more practical level, you should constantly be assessing and reassessing your word usage. If your sentences are nothing but strings of polysyllabic words and conjunctions, then start revising. Like most things in life, your writing should be balanced. Maintain variation in your sentence structure. If you find that you simply must include a sentence with multiple long words, balance it with a sentence with shorter words. Even better, include the definition of the long word in the sentence. Providing a definition will make your language more transparent for the reader, while also pushing you to get into the habit of breaking down complex terms.
Use examples: I love Helen Sword’s advice in Stylish Academic Writing: write a sentence beginning with “For example” after sentences that include abstractions or complicated phrasing. Much like including the definition of a long word, this will push you to write and think more concretely. If you look at your manuscript and realize that every other sentence is littered with the phrase “For example,” it might be time to adjust the level of abstraction at which you are writing.
Jargon can become a crutch in academic writing. Changing one’s writing style is not easy, which is why writers adhere to the structures and conventions to which we have become accustomed. In doing so, we end up repeating the same mistakes as writers that we find irritating as readers. When you lose the jargon, however, you can develop your own unique style and find your writing voice.
There can be multiple motivations for academic writers’ reliance on complex or obscure words. For instance, you might rely on jargon in order to signal your insider status. You want your reader to know that you’ve read the important texts and studied the arguments. You may be writing for an outlet where jargon is expected. Perhaps your complicated prose is an attempt to indicate your level of intellect. You’re a smarty-pants, and you have the obscure words to prove it. Or maybe you’ve just been immersed in a literature for so long that these words no longer seem obscure or complex to you.
The first step in dealing with jargon is thinking about your reading audience. As a writer, you should never think you are writing only for yourself. We write for an audience of readers that is both known and unknown to us. For every piece you write, from blog post to book manuscript, you should ask yourself “who is reading this?” Is it a group of insiders? Or, is it a broader audience who does not possess the same expertise as you? Finally, think about who you want your audience to be. Who is the ideal audience? Structure your prose with them in mind.
Writing in a clear, straightforward manner does not mean that you are “dumbing down” your analysis, or that your reasoning is any less sophisticated. Indeed, the ability to explain your argument in simple terms is a good indication that you understand what you’re talking about, because you are using your own words instead of merely repeating the words of other scholars. Your intent as a writer (I hope!) is to engage with a broader intellectual community. So do it! Take a step back from your writing, examine it the way a non-expert would, and make the necessary adjustments. The benefit is two-fold: you’ll expand your audience, and you’ll push yourself to think of you work from a new perspective.
Here are a few steps you can take to make your writing more accessible.
Read outside your discipline, or even your genre: Pick up a newspaper, magazine, or novel. Look at how the author develops her sentences and paragraphs. Pay close attention to the terms used and how the author conveys complex ideas with simple language. Personally, I think The Atlantic is a good example of a publication featuring articles with ideas that are both clear and sophisticated.
Find an example of good writing within your discipline: I can’t tell you how many times I read selections from Saskia Sassen’s Global Cities in my early years of graduate school. Was I ever a student of globalization studies? No, but I thought she wrote in a clear yet rigorous manner that I wanted to emulate. Seek out multiple texts to model your writing on, especially in the early years of graduate school. As your own writing evolves, you will take what works and adapt it to fit your writing style.
Find a writing partner outside of your specialty or discipline: A reader who is unfamiliar with the jargon you take for granted will push you to explain yourself and be clearer with your prose. Also, making yourself aware of the conventions in other disciplines – and how arbitrary they may seem to you – will empower you to be more critical of the conventions in your discipline. You might even gain exposure to writing styles and techniques to incorporate into your writing.
Limit the number of polysyllabic words in your sentences: On a more practical level, you should constantly be assessing and reassessing your word usage. If your sentences are nothing but strings of polysyllabic words and conjunctions, then start revising. Like most things in life, your writing should be balanced. Maintain variation in your sentence structure. If you find that you simply must include a sentence with multiple long words, balance it with a sentence with shorter words. Even better, include the definition of the long word in the sentence. Providing a definition will make your language more transparent for the reader, while also pushing you to get into the habit of breaking down complex terms.
Use examples: I love Helen Sword’s advice in Stylish Academic Writing: write a sentence beginning with “For example” after sentences that include abstractions or complicated phrasing. Much like including the definition of a long word, this will push you to write and think more concretely. If you look at your manuscript and realize that every other sentence is littered with the phrase “For example,” it might be time to adjust the level of abstraction at which you are writing.
Jargon can become a crutch in academic writing. Changing one’s writing style is not easy, which is why writers adhere to the structures and conventions to which we have become accustomed. In doing so, we end up repeating the same mistakes as writers that we find irritating as readers. When you lose the jargon, however, you can develop your own unique style and find your writing voice.
