Criticisms of academic writing are a popular and well-justified trope, but I have yet to see any speculation of why otherwise intelligent people acting in good faith would produce writing that everyone dislikes.
My hypothesis is this. In a single piece of academic writing, the author has several competing goals:
1. Get the ideas of the paper into the reader's head.
2. Persuade the reader to believe those ideas and that they are objectively true.
3. Give the reader the impression that the author is a prestigious, intelligent person doing difficult, original work.
When people argue for clearer writing, they are advocating disregarding the latter two, but authors don't have that luxury. In particular:
A big part of academic style, I think is an over-correction for a failure mode of 2. As we can see in the popular media today, often the best way to persuade people is to child-like appeals to emotion stated boldly and repeatedly. But that is also effective at persuading people of things that aren't actually true.
Academics are seeking truth, so they are rightly suspicious of any style that veers too close to unjustified proclamation and verbal strong-arming. Thus a style that is more passive and hedges its bets also comes across as more trustworthy. That is a necessary goal for the author too. A paper that is understood but not believed is no more useful than a paper that is incomprehensible.
The other part of persuading people is the impression of the merits of the author themselves. If some rando parent at your kids' soccer match tells you that wearing fabric on your face prevents disease, you might rightly disregard it. When a highly reputable epidemiologist does, you pay attention because they have earned your trust.
We grant more prestige to people, especially people professing novel insight, if they have a reputation of doing hard things. If the writing makes the idea seem too obvious or easy, we might wonder why it hasn't been discovered before? And if not, perhaps there is some fatal flaw?
All of this means that authors have real incentives to write in a more complex, less clear style, even though it has negative consequences for other goals. Choosing a style always involves trade-offs and our style is always intepreted in a certain social context that affects how it will be read.
My hypothesis is this. In a single piece of academic writing, the author has several competing goals:
1. Get the ideas of the paper into the reader's head.
2. Persuade the reader to believe those ideas and that they are objectively true.
3. Give the reader the impression that the author is a prestigious, intelligent person doing difficult, original work.
When people argue for clearer writing, they are advocating disregarding the latter two, but authors don't have that luxury. In particular:
A big part of academic style, I think is an over-correction for a failure mode of 2. As we can see in the popular media today, often the best way to persuade people is to child-like appeals to emotion stated boldly and repeatedly. But that is also effective at persuading people of things that aren't actually true.
Academics are seeking truth, so they are rightly suspicious of any style that veers too close to unjustified proclamation and verbal strong-arming. Thus a style that is more passive and hedges its bets also comes across as more trustworthy. That is a necessary goal for the author too. A paper that is understood but not believed is no more useful than a paper that is incomprehensible.
The other part of persuading people is the impression of the merits of the author themselves. If some rando parent at your kids' soccer match tells you that wearing fabric on your face prevents disease, you might rightly disregard it. When a highly reputable epidemiologist does, you pay attention because they have earned your trust.
We grant more prestige to people, especially people professing novel insight, if they have a reputation of doing hard things. If the writing makes the idea seem too obvious or easy, we might wonder why it hasn't been discovered before? And if not, perhaps there is some fatal flaw?
All of this means that authors have real incentives to write in a more complex, less clear style, even though it has negative consequences for other goals. Choosing a style always involves trade-offs and our style is always intepreted in a certain social context that affects how it will be read.