Biado, Kia A.

Pinkers Why Academic Writing Stinks: A Response of a Bad Academic Writer

The article written by Steven Pinker presented the issue, reasons and
the remedies of bad academic writing. He described the works of some
professionals with words synonym to unpleasant to read, and impossible to
understand while three answers were given on why these occurs: first,
bamboozlement theory or dressing up the trivial and the obvious with words
to impress its audience, second, the abstractness and complexity of the
subject matter, and lastly, the use of ponderous language as a proof of the
writers seriousness.

The issue was analyzed by literary scholars Francis-Noel Thomas and

Mark Turner. They presented two styles used by writers, practical style and
self-conscious style, drawing the latter as the reason why bad writing is the
end-result. Academics fall into self-conscious style because of the mentality
that their writing will make an impression of them being more of a slacker
than their peers in the same field. The communication to readers as selfpresentation ceases to be of use.

Misuse

of

the

metadiscourse,

having

professional

narcissism,

apologizing, use of shudder quotes and metaconcepts and nominalizations

were presented by Pinker as symptoms of agonizing self-consciousness.

Remedies and ways how to fix it were recommended by him to prevent
authors from writing papers that are unpleasant to read.
Although I agree on some part of Pinkers criticism on professional
narcissism, I dissent on the latter part of his explanation. If a topic of
conversation is the activity of the researcher, I think the world of his
profession and the world of the thing he study may be combined without
losing sight of whom he is writing for. Since the reader wants to know about
the activity of the researcher, I do not see why he must not include or
narcissistically

describe

the

obsessions

of

his

profession.

deeper

explanation and presentation of his activity will make the reader understand
the topic more and might also give an experience of immersion through his
reading.

In the last part of the article, the final explanation of why academics
write so badly comes not from literary analysis and cognitive science but
from classical economics and Skinnerian psychology. Although I concur with
the conclusion of Pinker, poor literary analysis and cognitive science should
still not be excluded as a factor of bad writing. The ability to organize and
conceptualize a research study is very significant for the translation of better
presentation that can be understood by the readers. Poor cognition of
authors, despite diligent research cannot communicate detailed and

informative topics too. Aside from these, I concur with the remaining
criticisms in the article.