What do you call this academic writing style and should it be avoided?
March 13, 2015 9:58 AM   Subscribe

What would you call this style of writing in which terms are introduced in a flurry of comma separated uses, synonyms or phrasal bits, other languages etc. I associate it mostly with continental academic writing but it may have broader uses. Is it ok to write like this in essays for an MA in Continental Philosophy?

Here is an example from a text by J-F Lyotard:

"What Freud calls the
Traumgedanke, the dream-thoughts, what the dream thinks, what it says clearly, its latent pronouncement (énouncé), must be attributed in toto to waking thought."

A friend in a more scientific academia had been proof-reading a paper I wrote, in which I tended to do this (not quite so extreme as the above) and they thought it was "too poetic" and inappropriate for an assessed exercise. However it seems so common in the texts that I read for the course: Derrida, Agamben, Lyotard etc.

a) What do you call this technique?
b) Should I try and avoid it?
posted by mary8nne to Education (18 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
People who write like that in my field (anthropology) tend to be postmodernists and associated with a few sets of theory (interpretive archaeology, for example), so that's how I describe that technique. I have been advised not to write that way, but to write for clarity and concision. However, I would guess that if this style of writing is appropriate anywhere, it is in continental philosophy - especially if that's how the sources you are reading are written. If you can, I'd talk to your faculty about it and certainly wait to change your style until you see feedback on this paper. They know how they would like you to write better than other fields do.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:18 AM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Yes it is broadly "post-modernist" writers that tend to use this style. I presume its to get around the problem of the "floating signifier" and impossibility of "defining terms" or true "clarity and concision".

I will have to ask the faculty head. But it would be good to know what I was asking about exactly ;)

In the end I tried to clean up the essay, and removed it as much as possible, based on the friends advice. So don't have any indication of it. Also ,the markers seem to tend not to make comments on stylistic choices.
posted by mary8nne at 10:30 AM on March 13, 2015


Using commas to present that list is just sloppy writing. If you really wish to say that these other terms of art refer to the same thing, or orbit around the primary term you begin with, then put them in parentheses and describe their relationship to your first term. Say what you mean.

I'd say it is typical of various "postmodern" writing traditions (they are traditions by now) to eschew authorial precision or ownership of argument as a theoretical move: the author declines authority. Running off a long list of related, almost the same concepts (or what other authors have referred to as thoughts, ideas, idioms, expressions, tropes, etc.) [see, that's how I'd do it] without using either syntax or punctuation or words to explain how they are related could, in the right writerly hands and in the right context, be quite legitimate as a rhetorical device. Depends on the context.
posted by spitbull at 10:31 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Also bear in mind that some times these stylistic devices come about as a result of translation and what works stylistically in one language will look odd in another. I find that especially in theoretical works translated from French by eminent scholars who grasp the meaning(s), but maybe not always the writerly flow. I've mainly battled with this in texts by Derrida and Genette, so I can see how that would maybe also apply to Lyotard.

I wouldn't aim to write like that myself.
posted by kariebookish at 10:58 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I (as a non-academic who sometimes reads academic writing) would call that style of writing obfuscatory and sometimes pompous, and I often think that certain texts are written that way on purpose. When reading a paper, I prefer that the author try to express his or her thoughts as clearly as possible.

That said, I'm not an active participant in academia, so you might not get very far in your department writing the way I would prefer.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 10:58 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


b) Should I try and avoid it?

Yes. One of the biggest take aways from the academic and professional writing class I took during college was that you never ever want to separate your subject from your verb that badly (or change subjects excessively). You will lose the reader because your sentence gets to ungodly confusing. Losing the reader due to lack for clarity completely defeats the purpose of writing in the first place.

Just because loads of people do it doesn't mean it's right.
posted by astapasta24 at 10:59 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Echoing spitbull: "Say what you mean."
posted by fivesavagepalms at 11:01 AM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Former academic here. Presumably, you're writing because you want to communicate your ideas clearly to your reader. Have you ever read anything by Derrida that made you think, "that was very clearly communicated!"?
posted by Ragged Richard at 11:06 AM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Unlike a lot of the other posters here, I majored in Philosophy at the undergraduate level and am in a Master's program that involves Philosophy.

It's not appropriate to use this writing style, even if you're studying Continental Philsophy. Here are the two main reasons: (1) fewer and fewer philosophers write that way, because it is unclear, too long, and sounds snotty, and (2) if you're writing about Philsophy (as opposed to writing Philosophy) you really must adhere to more standard language, such as in the social sciences and other humanities.
posted by schroedingersgirl at 11:12 AM on March 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Best answer: "Say what you mean."

But of course this is a very complex notion indeed, and there are many ways of 'saying what you mean.' Simple and seemingly straight forward denotations are not always the clearest, at least in philosophy, because often philosophy is dealing with the very notions of what clarity and meaning are.

Language creates problems for philosophy; when writing philosophy you are often trying to use language in a flexible enough way to get around the language problems to elucidate something deeper.

So this style of writing may be very useful. That's really the answer. It depends entirely on your project. Keep in mind that this style did arise with the so-called post-modern philosophers because of a certain Wittgensteinian way of looking at philosophy out of the corner of your eye, after the idea of denoting had been deconstructed, and after clear philosophical notions of 'saying what you mean' fell apart around the turn of the century. Many philosophers, Lyotard not the least of which, have used this type of writing not only to great effect but to great illumination of concepts that would otherwise be blurred in a profound way by so-called 'clear' writing.

When might it be useful? Well, this type of language construction is often employed when what you are trying to describe can only be described by describing the area around it. Why would you want to do this? Because, it could be argued, there is no other way. How, Wittgenstein might say, do you describe a gesture except by giving that gesture? And so what good does it do to simply call this thing that thing? What have you said by doing that? By always constructing sentences of the sort 'this is that,' it can be argued, you are actually making yourself less clear.

Generally, you wouldn't write this way in the sciences; it is perfectly acceptable, however, to write this way in philosophy if it is justified. That's really the ticket - there are many ways to write philosophy, and how you write is intrinsically tied to what you are trying to write about. Language in philosophy works differently than language in any other field, because philosophy is largely the study of language. Philosophy and poetry are not far removed, and philosophy is a highly creative endeavor. If you restrict yourself to some arbitrary style of writing you will limit the ideas that you are trying to expound.

The upshot is really this: it is generally not useful to think of philosophy as separate from some style of writing. They are one and the same, because ideas are language. What you have to say is not a separate thing from how it can be said. If this sentence construction is necessary to convey your idea, then you must use it; if it is not, then don't.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:36 AM on March 13, 2015 [12 favorites]


List of figures of amplification. Yours looks to me a bit like synonymia. Part of the problem may be that it appears to be useful primarily for adding emotional impact, which is not necessarily an effect you should be striving for in academic prose.
posted by Bardolph at 11:40 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I would call that a periodic sentence, where the thought is not completed until the end of the sentence.
posted by megancita at 12:02 PM on March 13, 2015


Response by poster: (2) if you're writing about Philsophy (as opposed to writing Philosophy) you really must adhere to more standard language, such as in the social sciences and other humanities.

I think that this distinction is actually wrong at an MA level / Phd Level. An MA in Philosophy like Mathematics or the Sciences is to participate in the field not to write about the field of study. Also, We have been told that a very high mark would be commensurate with an essay that could be published in a philosophical journal.
posted by mary8nne at 12:04 PM on March 13, 2015


What Lutoslawski said. I don't care for that style of writing myself, but I am not an academic working in continental philosophy. If I were, I would presumably have to adapt to that style and even use it to some extent myself, because otherwise people would not take my work seriously. Don't listen to people who confidently say "Just write clearly! Omit needless words!" and the rest of the Strunk & White gospel. Every subject area has its own tradition and style, and you're not going to change it by yourself.
posted by languagehat at 12:23 PM on March 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


I could reiterate languagehat's comment above. There is plenty of functional academic writing that is stylistically turbid and dull on purpose, because it's not designed to be clear, instead it's designed to be academically defensible. The muddier it is the better.

Generally it is true that academics tend to be shy about texts that are openly poetic or witty. There are pleasant exceptions, but technical writing mostly steers clear of any playful tone.

But that's not the point. The point is that you are writing specifically for your audience, and your audience is your instructors and their peers in Continental Philosophy. So you must strive to use the exact same syntax and vocabulary that regularly appears in the peer-reviewed academic journals that your instructors and their peers are published in. And if they sometimes have a fondness for stylistic play, then you should too.
posted by ovvl at 1:53 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Obviously I don't know your writing specifically, OP, but in general, many smart new grad students who have always been good writers (i.e.-- those working towards the MA) tend to imitate post-modern style in a way that sounds a bit inflated or explicitly derivative. It takes a while to hear/read the difference between a seminal philosopher and an MA student trying out the style.

Yes, writing style expresses the author's philosophy of semiotic transparency. IMO real wit -- even playful writing -- is a welcome sign of sophistication, at all levels of expertise. Nevertheless a good rule of thumb for MA students: don't write English syntax explicitly imitating the syntax of translations from the French.
posted by third rail at 11:40 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you're doing this for a living, write for your reader. Write what you think will bring you promotion and tenure and cash.
posted by pracowity at 2:32 AM on March 14, 2015


This text was originally written in French and then translated into English. Sometimes such translations may have a rather clunky style but they are faithful to the original text, and French has a very different writing style to English, especially when it comes to philosophy texts. However, for academic texts, this clunky yet faithful method is the type of translation I prefer. On the other hand, translation of literary works suffer badly from "clunky but faithful" translations, and I much prefer a translation that adapts the style and expressions to an equivalent English style.

I recently ordered a new translation of Proust's "The way by Swann's" and the translator's (Lydia Davis) notes at the beginning of the book convinced me that it was not the translation I wanted to read as it used the clunky but faithful style - even the Book's title is clunky. I subsequently bought the original Moncrief translation "Swann's way" and absolutely loved it.
posted by guy72277 at 2:15 AM on March 17, 2015


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