Can the Academic Write? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#11

Post by veddox » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 12:29 AM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #3

Another issue I didn't see in this interview is that academics (at least in the sciences) aren't trained to write, but they are often held to the same standards as those who are trained. Moreover, a scientist's job isn't primarily to write for a general audience, so it's hard to say they've failed in that regard. Whereas a journalist who gets the science wrong when reporting on it (beyond simply dumbing it down or ma…

Unfortunately, when the journalist fails and gets the science wrong, the result is a whole bunch of people with silly ideas about science (as if we didn't have enough of those already). When the scientist fails and gets the language wrong, the result is a whole bunch of people whose silly ideas about science aren't corrected because they never read the article.

Science loses either way.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#12

Post by Fomite » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 12:31 AM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #3

Another issue I didn't see in this interview is that academics (at least in the sciences) aren't trained to write, but they are often held to the same standards as those who are trained. Moreover, a scientist's job isn't primarily to write for a general audience, so it's hard to say they've failed in that regard. Whereas a journalist who gets the science wrong when reporting on it (beyond simply dumbing it down or ma…

It's also not what we do for a living. I rough order of what I should be doing with my day:

1. Writing Papers 2. Writing Grants 3. Mentoring Students 4. Thinking up new ideas for 1 & 2 ...

Somewhere, probably right around "Refactor a bunch of code", is "Write for a lay audience". How many members of any profession are good at a thing that's not even a tertiary priority for their job compared to the people who are experts in that?

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#13

Post by sn41 » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 2:21 AM UTC

I write "Analogous to the above construction, we now have the following." This is stilted for a normal article, but is the expected academic style. Academics can write well enough to reach their peers. Complaining that every academic is not good at writing (see, I did it again!) is a bit like saying that policemen are not good novelists.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#14

Post by kartickv » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 2:49 AM UTC

When I read computer science papers, I often find them written in a rigid, academic style compared to a blog post or a book. I sometimes skip reading papers for that reason. This is sad — there's all this human knowledge that was painstakingly discovered that readers are skipping because it was poorly presented.

One good writing technique is to take a complex idea, simplify it by eliminating some details, and present the simplified version. Then, once readers have understood that, present the details that you left out.

Maybe academics are afraid that someone will take the earlier sentences out of context and claim they're "wrong". When I was in college, my advisor picked out such an introductory sentence and said that I should be more accurate. I explained that it's just a simplification and that the details he's worried about are in the next para. He said, "That's fine, but this sentence should be correct by itself." The earlier sentence was wrong only if one picks nits. Actually, it was simplified, not wrong.

I wonder if academics don't understand or respect (enough) the principles of good writing.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#15

Post by munin » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 3:09 AM UTC

veddox wrote: post #8

A very interesting article! Being in academia myself (though admittedly still as a student) and having done some writing for magazines, I can thoroughly relate to this discussion. Academic writing is all about compressing complex topics and ideas with a long history into as concise a form as possible without losing accuracy. (At least in the natural sciences, where I come from; some people would say otherwise about s…

As a graduate student at a top research university I have to ask: where do scientists write concisely and accurately? That is the opposite of my experience. Academic writing is very obfuscatory and frequently full of typos, grammatical mistakes, or just straight-up inaccuracies. I blame the conference publication review process.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#16

Post by verylongaccount » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 4:37 AM UTC

kartickv wrote: post #14

When I read computer science papers, I often find them written in a rigid, academic style compared to a blog post or a book. I sometimes skip reading papers for that reason. This is sad — there's all this human knowledge that was painstakingly discovered that readers are skipping because it was poorly presented. One good writing technique is to take a complex idea, simplify it by eliminating some details, and present…

Sadly, your advisor's attitude is common. The mathematics literature seems to be particularly effected. There is incredible opposition to inserting a statement which isn't perfectly rigorous, even in the introduction where reader should expect a simplified overview of the paper. The result is one of the most opaque literatures in all of science --- it is almost impossible for a nonexpert to have any idea whatsoever what a paper is about.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#17

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 5:07 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #10

I see this often as a criticism of legal writing as well, and while some of it is legitimate, there's also an element of academic writing having a specific purpose. And that purpose isn't entertainment or pleasantness - it's precision. Like recently, when I had a sentence using the phase "missing completely at random" and someone deleted "completely" for clarity. That word was there for a very specific purpose - "mis…

[deleted]

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#18

Post by wodenokoto » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 8:55 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #10

I see this often as a criticism of legal writing as well, and while some of it is legitimate, there's also an element of academic writing having a specific purpose. And that purpose isn't entertainment or pleasantness - it's precision. Like recently, when I had a sentence using the phase "missing completely at random" and someone deleted "completely" for clarity. That word was there for a very specific purpose - "mis…

While that is true, it is very often used as an excuse of obtuse writing.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#19

Post by veddox » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

munin wrote: post #15

veddox wrote: post #8

A very interesting article! Being in academia myself (though admittedly still as a student) and having done some writing for magazines, I can thoroughly relate to this discussion. Academic writing is all about compressing complex topics and ideas with a long history into as concise a form as possible without losing accuracy. (At least in the natural sciences, where I come from; some people would say otherwise about s…

As a graduate student at a top research university I have to ask: where do scientists write concisely and accurately? That is the opposite of my experience. Academic writing is very obfuscatory and frequently full of typos, grammatical mistakes, or just straight-up inaccuracies. I blame the conference publication review process.

> That is the opposite of my experience.

I can't deny you your experience (especially as you have more of it than I do), at the same time, I can only echo my own. I don't know what your field is, mine is biology, and while we too have our share of obfuscated papers we also have many that are indeed as I described them above.

Re: Can the Academic Write?

#20

Post by k__ » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 9:56 AM UTC

I can't.

Don't know how I even got my degree. Probably because my prof. was nice and thought I know my shit despite writing badly about it :/