I think this leaves out the “epistemological imperative”, which I understand as the compulsion to use this specific language for the sake of being scientifically accurate. Particularly when dealing with peers, who will all too readily hold you accountable for inaccuracies, being precise is important, possibly even necessary to avoid the scientific community’s habit of tearing into any error to prove their own proficiency by showing up your deficiency.
I can’t find my source any more, unfortunately, but I read an article once about how students are essentially scared to have their writing torn to shreds because they were too direct in their assertions. I recall that it related an anecdote about birds on a movie set that were supposed to all fly away at the sound of a gunshot. Except they tried to fly away beforehand, so the solution was to tie them to the branch and release that wire when they were supposed to fly. Then the birds tried anyway, didn’t get anywhere, ended up hanging upside down and falling unconscious. When they tried again (after restoring the birds to consciousness), they released the wire… but the birds had learned that trying to fly away was unpleasant, so they just sat there instead. Why bother, if you go nowhere?
In the same manner, academics who write too clearly will end up getting bad grades, have papers rejected, essentially be punished for it. They may learn that, by carefully coaching their assertions, assumptions or just about anything that could be conceived as a statement of facts in a multi-layered insulation of qualifying statements and vague circumscriptions to avoid saying something wrong and show the acknowledgement that, like science in general, the causation they’re ascribing this phenomenon to is at best an educated guess and, while we can narrow down things that are not true, we can never be certain that things we assume are true really are and won’t be refuted somewhere down the line, making them look like morons…
I lost track of the sentence. Anyway, if you make mistakes, you’ll get attacked. Most people don’t like being attacked. So if you’ve been attacked enough, eventually you’ll either give up or adopt strategies to avoid being attacked.
Being complex and obscure in your phrasing makes it harder to attack you. And if it’s hard to understand you, people might just skim the points and not bother with the attackable details anway. If you notice that people who write in a difficult style don’t get attacked as much or as badly, you’ll adopt that style too.
Eventually, your writing is read by students stepping to fill your shoes. They may not understand why you write this way, but they see that many successful academics do. They may also experience the same attacks and come to the same conclusion. Either way, your caution has inspired a new generation of academic writers who will continue that trend.
Finally you’ll end up with a body of scientific knowledge that only experts can still navigate. They know to skim past the vagueness, indirections and qualifications, mostly understand the terms and can take the time to pick apart the details if something strikes them as odd. The common rube doesn’t understand jack shit. Your research may further the understanding of a small group of people, possibly see some practical use, but the general public can’t directly make any use of it.
Everyone has their area of expertise. “The common rube” at the hospital can be a professional cab driver who has half the city memorized or a sports buff who can tell you every significant baseball stat going back twenty years or a vagrant who has survived by mastering a litany of social protocols unique to the homeless population or a musician who has an entire arcane language for their craft.
As you specialize, you develop a jargon for the minutiae of your field. Which does go to your underlying point
Your research may further the understanding of a small group of people, possibly see some practical use, but the general public can’t directly make any use of it.
More broadly, they wouldn’t have the opportunity to leverage the research productively. If you need an electron microscope or an industrial boiler or a large population of waterfowl to make practical use of a piece of research data, most people aren’t going to be in the position to find it useful.
That said, expanding the pool of expertise is also supposed to be a major role of the academic system. If people in or adjacent to your field have trouble understanding your research output, it isn’t easily transmissible to people who do have an opportunity to leverage it.
One of the reasons why you have these large populations of sports buffs and musical talents and cab drivers bouncing around is thanks to the improved mechanisms of education distribution. Finding a middle ground between specificity and accessibility is critical if you want to grow your population of specialists.
I think this leaves out the “epistemological imperative”, which I understand as the compulsion to use this specific language for the sake of being scientifically accurate. Particularly when dealing with peers, who will all too readily hold you accountable for inaccuracies, being precise is important, possibly even necessary to avoid the scientific community’s habit of tearing into any error to prove their own proficiency by showing up your deficiency.
I can’t find my source any more, unfortunately, but I read an article once about how students are essentially scared to have their writing torn to shreds because they were too direct in their assertions. I recall that it related an anecdote about birds on a movie set that were supposed to all fly away at the sound of a gunshot. Except they tried to fly away beforehand, so the solution was to tie them to the branch and release that wire when they were supposed to fly. Then the birds tried anyway, didn’t get anywhere, ended up hanging upside down and falling unconscious. When they tried again (after restoring the birds to consciousness), they released the wire… but the birds had learned that trying to fly away was unpleasant, so they just sat there instead. Why bother, if you go nowhere?
In the same manner, academics who write too clearly will end up getting bad grades, have papers rejected, essentially be punished for it. They may learn that, by carefully coaching their assertions, assumptions or just about anything that could be conceived as a statement of facts in a multi-layered insulation of qualifying statements and vague circumscriptions to avoid saying something wrong and show the acknowledgement that, like science in general, the causation they’re ascribing this phenomenon to is at best an educated guess and, while we can narrow down things that are not true, we can never be certain that things we assume are true really are and won’t be refuted somewhere down the line, making them look like morons…
I lost track of the sentence. Anyway, if you make mistakes, you’ll get attacked. Most people don’t like being attacked. So if you’ve been attacked enough, eventually you’ll either give up or adopt strategies to avoid being attacked.
Being complex and obscure in your phrasing makes it harder to attack you. And if it’s hard to understand you, people might just skim the points and not bother with the attackable details anway. If you notice that people who write in a difficult style don’t get attacked as much or as badly, you’ll adopt that style too.
Eventually, your writing is read by students stepping to fill your shoes. They may not understand why you write this way, but they see that many successful academics do. They may also experience the same attacks and come to the same conclusion. Either way, your caution has inspired a new generation of academic writers who will continue that trend.
Finally you’ll end up with a body of scientific knowledge that only experts can still navigate. They know to skim past the vagueness, indirections and qualifications, mostly understand the terms and can take the time to pick apart the details if something strikes them as odd. The common rube doesn’t understand jack shit. Your research may further the understanding of a small group of people, possibly see some practical use, but the general public can’t directly make any use of it.
Everyone has their area of expertise. “The common rube” at the hospital can be a professional cab driver who has half the city memorized or a sports buff who can tell you every significant baseball stat going back twenty years or a vagrant who has survived by mastering a litany of social protocols unique to the homeless population or a musician who has an entire arcane language for their craft.
As you specialize, you develop a jargon for the minutiae of your field. Which does go to your underlying point
More broadly, they wouldn’t have the opportunity to leverage the research productively. If you need an electron microscope or an industrial boiler or a large population of waterfowl to make practical use of a piece of research data, most people aren’t going to be in the position to find it useful.
That said, expanding the pool of expertise is also supposed to be a major role of the academic system. If people in or adjacent to your field have trouble understanding your research output, it isn’t easily transmissible to people who do have an opportunity to leverage it.
One of the reasons why you have these large populations of sports buffs and musical talents and cab drivers bouncing around is thanks to the improved mechanisms of education distribution. Finding a middle ground between specificity and accessibility is critical if you want to grow your population of specialists.