1) What’s the popular explanation outside universities for why academics suck at writing? What’s the popular answer within universities? In Pinker’s opinion, however, what are the two major contributors to the poor quality of academics’ writing?
The popular explanation outside universities is that academics “suck” at writing because they try to hide the fact that they have nothing to say and try to cover this up by using “dress up” words that the average person does not understand but looks sophisticated. However, Pinker believes that academics write poorly due to the abstractness and complex lingo that the author uses in his/her field that amateurs do not understand. Another reason is that, the majority of university presses approve of complex words in their papers to show that the author is “serious” about his work.
2) Pinker names six obnoxious attributes of the “self-conscious style.” What are they?
There are six attributes of self-conscious style:
Metadiscourse: This is when the author’s work is filled with verbiage and “guides” the reader with previews and summaries.
Professional Narcissism: This is when researchers forgot who their target audience is and “describe the obsessions of their federation”
Apologizing: This is when the writer, presumes that the reader has sufficient knowledge in the topic and as a result do not define many concepts in their works.
Shudder Quotes: This is when the writer uses quotation marks but does not necessarily agree with the term inside the quotation mark.
Hedging: This is when writers use filler words to show that they are not 100% behind their ideas. Most academics use hedging in order to get off the hook when someone critiques their writing.
Metaconcepts and nominalizations: This is when the writer stores his/her ideas in abstractions. This results to when the author can not call anything by its name.
3) Are you prone to any of these attributes in your own writing? Why? Do you think some of these attributes might actually be redeemable?
I use metadiscourse and hedging sometimes in my writing, when I want to increase the word count or when I am not a 100% sure or confident of what I am writing. I don’t think any of these qualities are redeemable as they do not make your writing attractive and easy to comprehend for the reader.
4) What do you value most in another writer’s style?
I value a clear, cut type of writing that tends to be straight to the point. For example, Ernest Hemingway approaches his works in this method. I value this, as it makes reading more interesting and easily comprehensible for me.
rhetoricalresponses 