To the Editor:
Finally, I can provide my graduate students with an impassioned defense of unclear academic writing. I give my students readings on how to produce clear academic writing. I show them how to make complex ideas simple and clear. Yet, I know I am giving one side. Someone must be standing up for mediocre, obscure, opaque scholarly expression: what we call MOOSE writing in my class. So, I was delighted to read in The Chronicle Brian Connolly’s April 1st defense of unclear academic writing (“Everyone Hates Academic Writing. They’re Wrong.”).
At first, I thought The Chronicle was playing a joke. When Connolly wrote “pseudopopulist orientation” and confessed to loving “the obscure, the opaque, the impenetrable,” I was sure the essay was a prank. Fortunately, the essay is serious.
The heart of Connolly’s argument is that academics should only talk to each other. Not just other academics, but only to those in our clique. If we want to communicate with outsiders, that is our choice, not a requirement of the job. Consequently, those who demand that we write for a broader readership fail to understand the essence of our work. If our clique accepts MOOSE writing, then we should deliver MOOSE writing. Only then can academics ruminate on their thoughts.
Even if we accept Connolly’s proposition that academics should only write for specialists in their clique, it does not follow that they should be obscure, opaque, and impenetrable. Why would we want to make our clique-mates and students struggle unnecessarily? If our ideas are difficult to understand, our writing should help our colleagues understand them. Simple, clear language does that. If our ideas are simple, then why use unclear language? Why make it hard for our readers to understand? MOOSE writing retards our cliques’ scholarly work.
Obscure, opaque, and impenetrable writing is not just bad for those in our cliques. It is also bad for us, the writers. As the first readers of our works, our struggles to achieve clarity are debates within our minds. When we push ourselves to express our ideas clearly, we produce better ideas. When we allow ourselves to be content with obscure, opaque, and impenetrable writing, our ideas suffer.
But, I do not accept Connolly’s assertion that our only audience should be those in our clique. Some of our writing, yes, but never all of it. Connolly claims that the “educated general reader” is imaginary. Really? I have met hundreds of people, in and out of academia, who read academic and non-academic writings. My conversations with them have improved my scholarly ideas. If my colleagues and I had not written so that general readers could understand us, our scholarship would have been impoverished.
I assigned Connolly’s defense of MOOSE writing to my students because his piece reveals why critics of unclear academic writing are correct: There is no defense for bad academic writing. Clear writing is a foundation for scholarly progress and public discourse. And obscure, opaque, and impenetrable writing is a barrier.
John E. Eck
Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice
The University of Cincinnati
