A controversial concept
I recently came across a social media post that unsettled me. The person who posted claimed that academic writers would benefit from training by popular fiction writers. The poster found the dense academic prose difficult to understand.
This came to mind again when I noticed the recent global reaction to Dr Ally Louks’ thesis, Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose. The author asserts that the document was intended for the consumption of five expert assessors, possibly followed by a small community of researchers. To her surprise, she received over 24 million comments on her thesis after sharing news of its successful completion on social media. The vast majority of comments were overwhelmingly negative, some of which were disturbingly violent.
Academic writing versus plain language
Newsrooms once employed subject-specific journalists to ‘translate’ academic texts into suitable content for a lay audience. These experts in the public understanding of science explained the meaning of the complex terminology used by specialists to communicate with each other. Such journalists and experts are rare in modern society.
Some academic journals do require authors to provide Plain English Summaries (PES) of their papers. These short synopses of research should make the findings accessible to the general public. However, many academics find this task difficult. There is a role for academic editors here. I have seen too many such summaries where the writer simply repeats key lines from the abstract – often word for word – and technical jargon is left in place, with no attempt to explain what it means.
Some academic writers are equally adept at writing in other styles, including fiction, but they are rare. Academic writing is different to fiction writing in several important ways. Practically, academics are constrained by the word limits imposed on them by journal editors. There is a requirement to be concise and factual. There is no time for descriptive prose or the introduction of details that do not contribute directly to the arguments presented.
This brevity in academic writing can be challenging, but it fosters clarity and precision. Ideas must be communicated effectively within the confines of limited space. The rigour and technical complexity of the academic text must not be distorted just to satisfy readers who are not the intended target audience.
Personal experiences
As an academic editor, this is something I grapple with in every paper I edit. Authors may want to use terms like ‘interestingly’, ‘noteworthy’, ‘dramatic’ or ‘impressive’ to draw attention to results that seem genuinely surprising them. I remind them that the text must be neutral and that a sense of importance is subjective and open to interpretation. There is no place for idioms like ‘a double-edged sword’.
As I suggest rephrases to the text, I often feel a twinge of sadness. Sometimes it seems there is a talented descriptive writer in there, desperate to share their own detailed sensory experiences of their work. As a consequence, my role often feels constraining, restricting the writer to the confines of their formal discipline.
There are extremes where this approach is badly needed. I once edited a paper from a zoologist on monitoring the nest of an endangered falcon. In the methods section, the author described how they regularly climbed the tree with a large stick to beat off snakes attempting to raid the nest. This entire paragraph was inappropriate, and their actions were probably unethical too. The descriptive text needed to be hammered into a more formal shape.
Summary
There is a need for better and more widely used Plain English summaries of academic prose, but we cannot compromise on the way academics communicate with each other. Academic writers must adhere to the specific style of their discipline and to the rigorous standards and conventions of expert communication. The editor has a role in keeping academics there, as difficult as this sometimes may be to accept. If, as a reader, you cannot understand the final product you have to ask if it was meant for your consumption, as difficult as this may also be to accept.
