语言与文风2015theatlantic.com编辑精选
学术写作中不必要的复杂性
The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing
导读
《大西洋月刊》这篇文章批评学术写作充斥着无谓的术语和复杂句式，连其他专业的博士都读不懂，呼吁学者也为公众写作。评论区补充了另一面：为同行写作本是学术交流的正常方式，术语是专家之间高效沟通的工具，真正该区分的是“必要的复杂”与“无谓的复杂”。写作者读这篇可以反思：我的读者是谁，我的复杂是为了精确还是为了显得专业。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
动笔前先想清楚读者是谁：写给同行时，共享术语能提高效率；写给公众时，就要主动把术语“翻译”成日常语言。
- 02
区分“必要的复杂”与“无谓的复杂”：术语应该用来封装已经定义清楚的概念，而不是掩盖思想的空洞。
- 03
把想法翻译成别人能懂的文字本身要花力气，不要指望读者替你补全隐含前提；如果没人做这件事，多半是因为没有激励。
- 04
留意自己在模仿谁的文风：人会不自觉复制自己想归属的群体的写法，选文体时要有自觉。
HN 评论精选
为同行写作是学术交流的正常功能，术语是专家之间高效沟通的工具，不应一概斥为炫技。
我不否认学术界有大量故弄玄虚、滥用术语和糟糕的写作，但这篇文章过于简单化、片面。文中引用一位教授的话，说学者的读者“永远是同行，因为要靠他们拿终身教职”——可为同行写作本身并不值得指责，这本来就是大多数学术写作的目的：思想在专家之间传播，知识体系才得以逐步扩展。学者写给公众的文章通常也更通俗，只是不会发在期刊上。说他们写作只是为了“impress”或拿终身教职，是不厚道的揣测。任何高度技术性的领域都会有外人难以理解的术语，这没什么错，它让专家能高效沟通。
mazelife查看英文原文
I'm not going to say that there's isn't plenty of obscurantism, needless jargon, and just plain bad writing in academia. But, this article paints a pretty simplistic and one-sided picture. Let me take a quote that's emblematic of the problem from one of the professors (!?) in the article: “Academics, in general, don’t think about the public; they don't think about the average person, and they don't even think about their students when they write,”[Deborah S. Bosley] says. “Their intended audience is always their peers. That’s who they have to impress to get tenure.” Specifically this notion that "[an academic writer's] intended audience is always their peers," is treated as though it's somehow incriminating. But it's not, it's what most academic writing is for! Many academics do write for the public—and that's great, and more should do so—but they don't publish that in journals or with an academic press and when they do write for the public, their writing is usually pitched at a more accessible level. But most of the writing academics do is aimed at their peers because that is how ideas are transmitted among specialists and how a body of knowledge is gradually expanded. The notion that that they only do this just to "impress" or get tenure seems to be a really bad-faith argument. Look, any highly technical endeavor is going to have highly technical jargon that’s pretty impenetrable from the outside. There's nothing wrong with that: it allows specialists to communicate about complex topics efficiently. Whether the field is medicine, philosophy, or computer science is immaterial. Frankly, if you want to see a place where obscurantism, needless jargon, and just plain bad writing are used as tools to disguise the fundamental banality of the ideas being presented, look no further than a lot of business writing. I'd take academic writing over management-speak any day.
要区分“无谓复杂”和“必要复杂”——专业写作假设读者有背景知识，像补丁而非完整源码。
文章到底举了哪些“无谓复杂”的论文？它说学术文章连不同专业的博士都读不懂，但这可能只是因为主题本身复杂、读者没跟上，而不是文章无谓地复杂。一篇不做任何前提假设的文章最终会变成几百页的书，而不是8页的论文。打个比方，论文不是完整源代码，而是相对已有研究的补丁。当然有烂文章（比如那些故意用长词的搞笑论文），但说这占了大多数，是夸大。
probably_wrong查看英文原文
So, which papers are they citing as "needlessly complex"? Or, to be more precise, which papers are "needlessly complex", and which ones are "justified complex"? FTA: > Bosley (...) says that academic prose is often so riddled with professional jargon and needlessly complex syntax that even someone with a Ph.D. can’t understand a fellow Ph.D.’s work unless he or she comes from the very same discipline. That doesn't necessarily mean that the article is "needlessly complex", it could also mean that the article deals with a complex topic, and therefore will be complex to read if you are not up to date with the topic. An article that makes no previous assumptions is ultimately called a book, and runs hundreds of pages long, as opposed to an 8-pages scientific article. Or, to make an analogy, it's not intended to be the full source code but a diff to previous research. Of course, there is some bad writing around (like the IG Nobel prize, where students use longer words just because they can). But to claim that it makes for a majority of writing seems to me like a stretch.
术语本身合理，真正的障碍是“翻译成通俗表达”需要成本，而制度没有给出激励。
作为曾经的学者，我认为文章混淆了两件事。术语的使用常常是合理的，专家用特定词汇封装复杂但定义清晰的概念。见过隐含假设被偷换导致混乱之后，术语不会消失。我看到的问题是：把想法翻译成文字需要投入劳动，术语也可以被翻译，但如果没有相应的激励机制，这项工作就没人做。（故意晦涩的人另当别论，那是无能加欺诈。）
rwj查看英文原文
Having been an academic, this article confused two things. The use of jargon is often justified, as specialists often use particular words to encapsulated complicated but also well defined concepts. Having seen the confusion that comes when hidden assumptions are allowed to change (equivocation), the use of jargon will not go away. The problem that I see is that translating ideas into words takes work. Jargon can also be translated. But unless the incentives are in place, this work won't be done. (I set aside the question of people who deliberately obfuscate. This is simply compounding incompetence with fraud.)
文风常常是“归属信号”，人们会不自觉模仿想加入的群体的写法。
文章漏掉一个重要因素：人会模仿自己想归属的群体的风格和惯例。从大学起，学生第一次接触期刊论文和学术专著，就收到一个隐含信息：想加入这个圈子、被认真对待，你的写作就该朝这个方向努力。
ilamont查看英文原文
I felt that the article missed an important factor: People mimic styles and conventions of a group they want to belong to. It starts in college when students get their first taste of journal articles and scholarly books, which comes with an implicit message: If you want to join the club & be taken seriously, this is what you should strive for in your own writing.
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