I actually have a lot of affection for academia overall (my whole family consists of professors, and I like them, so I also have warm feelings toward the culture that supports them). But academic writing is one of the best examples of the kind of dysfunction Eliezer is talking about.
While there are a few rebels who attempt to write scholarly articles with clear and engaging prose, most academics are actually trying to do the opposite. They make their sentences as convoluted and jargon-filled as possible because it signals that their work is hard and advanced, and because they don’t really want anyone outside their field to understand it. Often this would open them up to kinds of criticism they don’t want. (This effect is pretty much confined to the humanities and the social sciences. Most of the hard sciences are already impenetrable to outsiders, so they don’t need the extra barrier of thorny writing.)
So those journal articles might be written to a higher standard than you think, given that the standard is obtuseness and impenetrability.
Funny. All the people I know in academia place high value on good writing and complain about journal standards preventing them from writing as clearly as they would want (so this is in partial agreement that the system discourages bad writing, but more in the sense of annoyances that prevent an otherwise good paper from being very good). I will also note that, at least in my experience, there is a pretty clear correlation between institutional prestige and clarity of writing (better institutions produce clearer papers).
I think we’re in complete agreement, actually! There’s nothing you said that I would dispute. As you say, there’s a widespread perception among academics that they’re forced into a style of writing that’s intentionally “bad” (unclear, obtuse). Some rebel against this standard. I think the individuals who would be most likely to rebel are those with solid results or substantive ideas that they want to share with a wide audience, and these high-value academics are most likely to end up at more prestigious universities.
But the bad-writing system is perpetuated because most academics aren’t the cream of the crop. Most of them don’t consistently come up with interesting new ideas or groundbreaking new results. They still have to publish articles. (For those outside academia: a professorial career—even at a “teaching” university, as opposed to a research institution—is largely driven by the pressure to publish or perish.)
Because of these pressures, it’s to the average professor’s advantage if he can publish papers that seem deeper or more substantive than they are. So the majority have an interest in perpetuating the current standard of academic writing, which is deliberately obfuscatory.
Hm...to me it seems more a case of status quo bias. This is the way it’s been done, and it’s risky to submit something that doesn’t conform to the standards, so most people don’t take that risk, and so we never have much evidence about what would happen if the standards weren’t followed.
After all, being a reviewer is considered a high-status position. The reviewers for a journal have typically published in that journal before—therefore the reviewers for a good journal tend to themselves be good. So the standards for acceptance to a good journal are implicitly set by good researchers. In fact, a poorly written paper is very unlikely to be accepted in such a venue.
Perhaps we are in agreement with all of this (since you seem to agree that this is not as much of a problem at the top). But then there seems to be a very simple action to circumvent all these issues—only read good journals, and only submit to good journals. In particular, your statement
But academic writing is one of the best examples of the kind of dysfunction Eliezer is talking about.
doesn’t make sense to me if we really are in agreement.
So, now I’m confused about what you’re actually saying. You start by acknowledging that the status quo in academic writing is a standard of bad, obfuscatory writing (and this goes back to what you said originally: “All the people I know in academia...complain about journal standards.”)
But then you posit some kind of broad pool of outside-the-status-quo “good” journals, that hold different standards? I don’t think this pool exists. If they did, the status quo would be different, and your friends would not have the uniform complaint that you report.
And being a reviewer isn’t particularly high-status, because it’s typically an anonymous job. In fact the really top-of-the-field academics usually don’t do much reviewing, because they’re too busy. The one exception is that journals will, as a courtesy, often give big-name academics the chance to review articles that attack or oppose their own work. (You can probably see why this is a bad idea, but it’s very common—and results, as you might expect, in “unorthodox” papers being denied publication.)
You start by acknowledging that the status quo in academic writing is a standard of bad, obfuscatory writing
I didn’t say that. I said that standards inhibit optimal writing, not that they encourage bad writing. I also didn’t say there was a broad pool of publication venues, just enough that you can publish what you want there and read what you want there. For instance, in machine learning, it would be:
I’m sure you can still find some poorly-written papers there (especially at the conferences, where reviewers are very over-worked), but I would be very surprised if you thought that the papers there were bad and obfuscatory. Reviewers spot obfuscation a mile away and penalize it appropriately.
And being a reviewer isn’t particularly high-status, because it’s typically an anonymous job.
Yes, I was wrong about that. Being an area chair or sitting on an editorial board is high-status, though, or so I believe.
While there are a few rebels who attempt to write scholarly articles with clear and engaging prose, most academics are actually trying to do the opposite. They make their sentences as convoluted and jargon-filled as possible because it signals that their work is hard and advanced, and because they don’t really want anyone outside their field to understand it.
This strikes me as so cynical that I’d want to see some evidence before I can take it seriously. Many academic write in the way that they do because they’re writing to an audience of insiders (should they not?), but I can’t imagine why they would want to be intentionally obscure.
This strikes me as so cynical that I’d want to see some evidence before I can take it seriously.
I think this is going to stagger you. Check out this article: it deals with the academic theorists who are actually willing to state, in print, and repeatedly, that clarity of writing is not their goal.
“On one side stand academic luminaries like University of California at Berkeley rhetorician Judith Butler and University of Pittsburgh English professor Jonathan Arac, who take their inspiration from critical theorists like Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno. Arguing that their work has been misunderstood by journalists on the left, these radical professors distrust the demand for ‘linguistic transparency,’ charging that it cripples one’s ability ‘to think the world more radically.’”
“Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content.”
(The article goes on to cite specifics and is well worth a full read.)
Okay, but this is a) a case where someone is writing obscurely because they believe they have good reasons to do so (not so as to make it seem hard and advanced), and b) has nothing to do with physics or mathematics.
If anyone here thinks, like, leftist critical theory is worth a damn, I’ll be surprised. But that’s not part of academia at issue.
I think your a) is wrong—making it seem hard and advanced is part of the “good reason.” But like I said originally: “This effect is pretty much confined to the humanities and the social sciences.” In other words, two thirds of academia.
I actually have a lot of affection for academia overall (my whole family consists of professors, and I like them, so I also have warm feelings toward the culture that supports them). But academic writing is one of the best examples of the kind of dysfunction Eliezer is talking about.
While there are a few rebels who attempt to write scholarly articles with clear and engaging prose, most academics are actually trying to do the opposite. They make their sentences as convoluted and jargon-filled as possible because it signals that their work is hard and advanced, and because they don’t really want anyone outside their field to understand it. Often this would open them up to kinds of criticism they don’t want. (This effect is pretty much confined to the humanities and the social sciences. Most of the hard sciences are already impenetrable to outsiders, so they don’t need the extra barrier of thorny writing.)
So those journal articles might be written to a higher standard than you think, given that the standard is obtuseness and impenetrability.
Funny. All the people I know in academia place high value on good writing and complain about journal standards preventing them from writing as clearly as they would want (so this is in partial agreement that the system discourages bad writing, but more in the sense of annoyances that prevent an otherwise good paper from being very good). I will also note that, at least in my experience, there is a pretty clear correlation between institutional prestige and clarity of writing (better institutions produce clearer papers).
I think we’re in complete agreement, actually! There’s nothing you said that I would dispute. As you say, there’s a widespread perception among academics that they’re forced into a style of writing that’s intentionally “bad” (unclear, obtuse). Some rebel against this standard. I think the individuals who would be most likely to rebel are those with solid results or substantive ideas that they want to share with a wide audience, and these high-value academics are most likely to end up at more prestigious universities.
But the bad-writing system is perpetuated because most academics aren’t the cream of the crop. Most of them don’t consistently come up with interesting new ideas or groundbreaking new results. They still have to publish articles. (For those outside academia: a professorial career—even at a “teaching” university, as opposed to a research institution—is largely driven by the pressure to publish or perish.)
Because of these pressures, it’s to the average professor’s advantage if he can publish papers that seem deeper or more substantive than they are. So the majority have an interest in perpetuating the current standard of academic writing, which is deliberately obfuscatory.
Hm...to me it seems more a case of status quo bias. This is the way it’s been done, and it’s risky to submit something that doesn’t conform to the standards, so most people don’t take that risk, and so we never have much evidence about what would happen if the standards weren’t followed.
After all, being a reviewer is considered a high-status position. The reviewers for a journal have typically published in that journal before—therefore the reviewers for a good journal tend to themselves be good. So the standards for acceptance to a good journal are implicitly set by good researchers. In fact, a poorly written paper is very unlikely to be accepted in such a venue.
Perhaps we are in agreement with all of this (since you seem to agree that this is not as much of a problem at the top). But then there seems to be a very simple action to circumvent all these issues—only read good journals, and only submit to good journals. In particular, your statement
doesn’t make sense to me if we really are in agreement.
So, now I’m confused about what you’re actually saying. You start by acknowledging that the status quo in academic writing is a standard of bad, obfuscatory writing (and this goes back to what you said originally: “All the people I know in academia...complain about journal standards.”)
But then you posit some kind of broad pool of outside-the-status-quo “good” journals, that hold different standards? I don’t think this pool exists. If they did, the status quo would be different, and your friends would not have the uniform complaint that you report.
And being a reviewer isn’t particularly high-status, because it’s typically an anonymous job. In fact the really top-of-the-field academics usually don’t do much reviewing, because they’re too busy. The one exception is that journals will, as a courtesy, often give big-name academics the chance to review articles that attack or oppose their own work. (You can probably see why this is a bad idea, but it’s very common—and results, as you might expect, in “unorthodox” papers being denied publication.)
I didn’t say that. I said that standards inhibit optimal writing, not that they encourage bad writing. I also didn’t say there was a broad pool of publication venues, just enough that you can publish what you want there and read what you want there. For instance, in machine learning, it would be:
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
AI & Statistics
Journal of Machine Learning Research
Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence
I’m sure you can still find some poorly-written papers there (especially at the conferences, where reviewers are very over-worked), but I would be very surprised if you thought that the papers there were bad and obfuscatory. Reviewers spot obfuscation a mile away and penalize it appropriately.
Yes, I was wrong about that. Being an area chair or sitting on an editorial board is high-status, though, or so I believe.
This strikes me as so cynical that I’d want to see some evidence before I can take it seriously. Many academic write in the way that they do because they’re writing to an audience of insiders (should they not?), but I can’t imagine why they would want to be intentionally obscure.
I think this is going to stagger you. Check out this article: it deals with the academic theorists who are actually willing to state, in print, and repeatedly, that clarity of writing is not their goal.
“On one side stand academic luminaries like University of California at Berkeley rhetorician Judith Butler and University of Pittsburgh English professor Jonathan Arac, who take their inspiration from critical theorists like Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno. Arguing that their work has been misunderstood by journalists on the left, these radical professors distrust the demand for ‘linguistic transparency,’ charging that it cripples one’s ability ‘to think the world more radically.’”
And here’s Richard Dawkins on the phenomenon:
“Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content.”
(The article goes on to cite specifics and is well worth a full read.)
Okay, but this is a) a case where someone is writing obscurely because they believe they have good reasons to do so (not so as to make it seem hard and advanced), and b) has nothing to do with physics or mathematics.
If anyone here thinks, like, leftist critical theory is worth a damn, I’ll be surprised. But that’s not part of academia at issue.
I think your a) is wrong—making it seem hard and advanced is part of the “good reason.” But like I said originally: “This effect is pretty much confined to the humanities and the social sciences.” In other words, two thirds of academia.