When I got started writing fiction I was in an interesting place as a writer. I was two years out of University and had been working in the biology field for three years. Now I had written a lot of reports by that time; weekly task updates, presentations for student groups, and end of season technical reports. All of this had one thing in common. There were all academic style writing. Three different forms, but all were highly structured and governed by immutable rules. There was almost no scope for imagination at all. I knew what each was going to say and was basically filling in the appropriate numbers and proper nouns in a blank form. This was not writing. I tried to write a story on a whim and found that my real writing skills had deteriorated to the point that I would have been ashamed to show it to a third grade teacher.
I am apparently not the only one who has become a bit disillusioned with this academic writing style. Granted it is a bit different in science work where you have to use words with ten and fifteen syllables on a regular basis and have to be painstakingly precise about every detail but the rest of academia might be served well by allowing a bit more wriggle room. The Atlantic published an article exploring this in depth and provided this little gem:
The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation.
Though all the words are spelled correctly most of even the high end spell checkers don't even recognize some of them. Maybe some of those "Piled Higher and Deeper" folks need to tone it down a bit.
I am apparently not the only one who has become a bit disillusioned with this academic writing style. Granted it is a bit different in science work where you have to use words with ten and fifteen syllables on a regular basis and have to be painstakingly precise about every detail but the rest of academia might be served well by allowing a bit more wriggle room. The Atlantic published an article exploring this in depth and provided this little gem:
The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation.
Though all the words are spelled correctly most of even the high end spell checkers don't even recognize some of them. Maybe some of those "Piled Higher and Deeper" folks need to tone it down a bit.
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