Jollification of academic writing: expressing ideas with style
Writing plays a central role in academia – it is a way of communicating ideas and a means for assessment (Evans, 2013). The latter function is the focus of this blog, given that it concerns the legitimacy of the ways in which our ideas are expressed. One can hardly find a piece of academic writing which can escape the fate of being assessed, no matter it is an annotated bibliography for students’ coursework or a journal article for peerreview. Once upon many times, we have both received and provided feedback which stated – the writing here is not in line with the convention of academic writing. It seems that expressing ideas with a style and a personality contradicts basic requirements for writing academically, such as being rigorous and credible (Antoniou and Moriarty, 2008). In discussing students’ writings in higher education, Hyatt (2005, p.339) pointed out that “the texts they produce are judged by reified taxonomies within which the conventionalised ‘genre’ is privileged over the marginalised individual writer.” What Hyatt said here can easily be applied to the discussion of academics’ scholarly works as well. It is not uncommon that a well-intended metaphor was marked by reviewers as ‘interrupting the flow of arguments.’ The main argument in this blog is: scholarly writings need to be, on top of other things, aesthetic and engaging.
It is necessary to showcase our ideas and insights in our writing. However, the ways in which those ideas are communicated are crucial because it would not be the best way of using our time to write something that nobody wants to read, or in a worse scenario where our writing makes readers feel miserable when reading it. In one blog post, Labaree (2022) observed that “much academic writing is at best intelligible and at worst unreadable.” In line with Evans (2013) and Labaree (2022), I argue that there are at least two reasons for our writing to be jolly and aesthetic. First, to bring joyfulness to the readers, which in turn would facilitate their understanding of our ideas; and secondly, to bring joyfulness to ourselves and keep us going.
Some scholars are good at presenting complex ideas in simple language, whereas others are good at presenting simple ideas in a way that no one can understand. The bitter reality is that the latter group of scholars are more likely to receive acclamation regarding their writing, because their writing may sound more credible. It has long been debated whether to use ‘I’ in scientific writing. Perhaps there need to be a movement to further beautify academic writing. This is not only for refreshing our readers by making them experience the beauty of languages, including the rhythms of the sentences and the vividness of metaphors, but also to help them understand our ideas. Indeed, the beautification and ‘engagification’ of academic writing is not simply a linguistic issue, but an epistemological one. Todres (2007) was impressed by writers who are capable of generating understanding of a phenomenon within readers. By drawing on Dilthey’s thoughts, Todres (2007, p.10) went on to offer a suggestion for academics ‘to write in a language that aims to elicit empathy and participation in the reader.’ In the same vein, Evans (2013, p.106) maintained that ‘Creative writing encourages a richness of language which open up the author and makes what they are saying alive to the reader.’
Academic writing goes beyond the cognitive terrain and steps into an affective domain (Wellington, 2010). We are the (first) reader of our own writing (Evans, 2013). It can be highly rewarding to gain some ‘scholarly pleasures’ (Labaree, 2022) from our writing. This seems to be particularly important for a large project, such as a PhD thesis. Indeed, at least for full-time PhD students, their theses are the entities that they (are supposed to) face every day. In the process of thesis writing, it is possible to gain a sense of enjoyment from the rich language they use or a witty analogy they construe. Such enjoyment may, in turn, function as a gentle breeze accompanying them through the muggy PhD journey.
One does not have to become William McGonagall to write in an aesthetic way. In other words, there is no need to turn everything we write into a (self-claimed) good poem. Despite encouragement from scholars such as Evans (2013), writing in a poetic manner is in fact very challenging, given that many scholars and students, including myself, are often not writing in their first language. There are other subtle ways of writing aesthetically and engagingly. For instance, Labaree (2022) suggested academic writers should read broadly and learn how to express ideas from other genres of writing such as fiction. Another tactic is to use metaphors. However, metaphors could be confusing and inspirational at the same time. For example, in discussing research paradigms, Pring (2000, p.254) stated that “Social constructionists in the sense of Paradigm B are rarely found at 30,000 feet.” In spite of the diverse interpretations this metaphor brought, it has caused significant confusions among students and tutors who are trying to familiarise themselves with different research paradigms. It is worth spending time on hatching a good metaphor.
To sum up, this blog has aimed to open a conversation among academics and students regarding the tones we use in academic writing. It is up to the writers to decide whether we want to put a smile on our readers’ (including ourselves’) face through our writing or to put another frown line on their forehead.
References
Antoniou, M. and Moriarty, J. 2008. What can academic writers learn from creative writers? Developing guidance and support for lecturers in Higher Education. Teaching in Higher Education. 13(2), pp.157-167.
Evans, K. 2013. Pathways Through Writing Blocks in the Academic Environment. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Hyatt, D. 2005. ‘Yes, a very good point!’: a critical genre analysis of a corpus of feedback commentaries on Masters of Education assignments. Teaching in Higher Education. 10(3), pp.339-353.
Labaree, D.F. 2022. The aesthetic pleasures of scholarly writing. [Online]. [Accessed 6th March 2024]. From: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/10/11/how-academic-writing-can-actually-offer-aesthetic-pleasure-opinion
Pring R. (2000) ‘False Dualism’ of Educational Research. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34(2), pp.247–60.
Todres, L. 2007. Embodied Enquiry. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wellington, J. 2010. More than a matter of cognition: an exploration of affective writing problems of post-graduate students and their possible solutions. Teaching in Higher Education. 15(2), pp.135-150.
About the author
Xiaomeng Tian is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Dundee. His research interests include relational pedagogy in all formal educational contexts.
This comment is from Yan Cai and Yunxuan Chen
The blog discusses a noticeable characteristic of academic writing: being intelligible but unreadable. To improve this, the writer argues that scholarly writings need to be aesthetic and engaging over other considerations, bringing joy to both readers and writers by employing tactics like metaphor.
Indeed, as a graduated PG student, while focusing on most core readings or references when completing my essays, I truly resonate with the author’s sentiment that “(these academic papers) do not quite offer a deeper understanding of a phenomenon or a context.” I feel that I cannot empathize with the writers and their research contents, especially when I have limited experiences similar to the participants. This could be a horrible and joyless thing if I have to research on this topic for a long time through those indifferent words and expressions.
Literary language and rhetoric could be considered as a solution to increase the beautification and engagement. However, I don’t think it should be applied indiscriminately in every part of academic writing, especially in data analysis, findings, and discussion sections, which should be more reliable and credible. Credible here does not symbolize boring and tedious, but rather ensures the seriousness of the research. Regarding the use of metaphor, simile, or exaggeration, it would be highly recommended in the introduction, context description, and summary parts, bringing the reader into a vivid description.
What is most important is that academic writing should meet the needs of readers, much like opera considers its audience. Metaphor or other rhetoric may present language and cultural barriers for readers who speak English as a second language, making it difficult to express and understand, which could further increase the unreadability of academic writing.
I think having fixed writing conventions in academic writing is actually quite beneficial, making it easier for everyone (both native English speakers and second language speakers) to accurately find key information. Clarity, readability, and accuracy are also crucial for English to serve as the primary international language for academic communication. While we can consider adding joyfulness and aesthetic elements, from my personal perspective, they shouldn’t overshadow other important aspects as I mentioned above.