Why Academics Stink at Writing Summary

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Instructor
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Why Academics Stink at Writing by Steven Pinker
Summary
Academics mainly shared knowledge mostly with fellow scholars and in such case they at times fail to write clear focusing on abstractions and failing to communicate with a wider audience. Scholars in the west are taught to communicate in writing, but are not necessarily good at this at the same time, teaching writing to writers is also difficult since they tend to use prose that is obscure, clumsy and difficult to understand. Yet this contradicts the goal of spreading knowledge in scholarly work and even educators are stuck on traditional academic norms that even when ideas are expressed in non intelligible ways there is no concern that this is not easily understandable to many people. Pinker targets eminent scholars and highlights that there is professional narcissism that results in academic writing stinking. This assertion is based on his observation that writers have written without giving thought about the intended meaning, it is no surprise that scholars engage in what they consider intellectual discourse yet their writings are confusing and at times incoherent. Academic writing at the professional is expected to be comprehensible that even other scholars cannot understand and even other people can engage in academic discourse discussing ideas. Writing is complex and multidisciplinary, but academic writing should still be clear, but does not have to be bad. Academic writing is challenging that academic writers become boring without realizing that they fail to convey the intended meaning. For instance, academic writers who use jargon and wordy sentences to appear intellectual ignore how the readers interpret their writing even as they seek to convey messages to their targets. Readers do not always under...