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Academic writing isn't a field; or if it is one, then it's not one of the (many) fields that's being discussed in this article.
by nmrm2 11y ago
Academic writing isn't a field; or if it is one, then it's not one of the (many) fields that's being discussed in this article.
- ThomPete 11y agoI know but each of those fields communicate their findins through ex. writing, which is what adds to the ongoing complexity of the writing. Not really sure what you take issue with.
- nmrm2 11y ago>Not really sure what you take issue with. Yeah we're talking past each other. My point is that writing isn't the primary purpose of most academic work, and even when publications are the primary measured output, it's rarely the case that the publications are being evaluated based upon the quality of the writing rather than the quality of the underlying work. It's possible for excellent science to be written up poorly. And also vice versa. So thinking of writing as the main output of science is kind of misguided. In a way, the opposite of what you were saying is true -- the actual writing is of far less importance than the results that the writing is being used to describe, and so scientists struggle to communicate with the outside world not because writing is the point, but because it's this thing they have to do in between their experiments / proofs / software writing / etc.
- ThomPete 11y agoWait. I didn't say any of that. I am simply pointing out that when writing is part of the way to communicate then that takes on a refinement process of it's own. Just like simple notes become complex 12 tone music or bebob over time. Academic writing is often a product of academic reading and so it ends up pushing the next generation into further obfuscation of meaning and towards even more clique writing. We are talking about fields like Psychology, social sciences, literature, biology, anthropology and so on. I don't normally hear the problem being address in CS or in the Natural Sciences and I don't see the article points that out specifically. But writing is definitely one of the main forms of communication for those I mentioned and they are a large part of acedmia.