The curse of knowledge is a major reason that good scholars write bad prose. It simply doesn’t occur to them that their readers don’t know what they know—that those readers haven’t mastered the patois or can’t divine the missing steps that seem too obvious to mention or have no way to visualize an event that to the writer is as clear as day. And so they don’t bother to explain the jargon or spell out the logic or supply the necessary detail. ... Enough already. Our indifference to how we share the fruits of our intellectual labors is a betrayal of our calling to enhance the spread of knowledge. In writing badly, we are wasting each other’s time, sowing confusion and error, and turning our profession into a laughingstock. Cogent and engagingly written analysis drawing from principles in psychology, linguistics, rhetoric, etc. by Steven Pinker. Will probably include this article in my list of Eng10 readings next sem, along with my staple Politics and the English Language by George Orwell (oh if only DFWs Authority and American Usage werent too long at 60 pages!)
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 02:38:10 +0000
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