Re: Liberal arts, academia, verbosity, whining, money

["Marie C. Paretti" <mparetti -at- RRINC -dot- COM>]

Despite the fact that I don't typically respond to intentionally
inflammatory comments, I just can't let this one go by.  The bs factor in
it just a little too high.  Of course, my response may be long, which will
no doubt get me accused of wordiness, another testament to the evils of
academics.  But what the hell.

According to a recent post:

>It seems to me that it's a problem with academia in general.
>I've noticed that the academics and former academics who post both to this
list
>and to me seem to be paid by the word.  They ramble on forever.  It
doesn't look
>like they can write concisely.  Would I hire one of them?  No way!  I can see
>their poor users now -- they'd nod off during procedures, trying to get
through
>all the verbiage!

Oh please.  Yes, some academics are wordy, but so are a lot of other
people. Sometimes academic writing is unnecessarily verbose, but sometimes
it just looks that way.  Academics publish a lot, and they write for a
particular audience, one familiar with the ins and outs of their particular
field.  Proposing theories and trying to justify them to a bunch of experts
who may be deeply invested in alternate views generally requires a lot of
explaining -- it ain't like telling a stranger how to get to the grocery
store.  The person who reads my manual isn't about to argue with me about
whether or not "From the File menu, select Open" is a valid intellectual
premise, but the person (I know there's one) who reads my dissertation
probably will question my discussion of current trends in poetic form.

The point is that some issues are *complex* and deserve detailed discussion
-- despite the fact that we live in a country in love with soundbites and
advertising slogans, "concise" doesn't always do justice to a given topic.
"Concise" is good for user manuals; it's typically superficial and
insufficient if you want to tackle social policy, irony in Shakespeare, the
causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or why human beings behave the
way they do.  Maybe the "anti-intellectualism" comes from a culture that
believes that *everything* can be reduced to a thirty-second commercial and
so refuses to deal with complexity.  I hate to burst the bubble, but life
ain't that way.

As Beth Agnew so wonderfully pointed out, the bottom line is being a writer
and understanding audience and purpose.  Not all academics are inherently
writers.  But the fact that I wrote a 300-page dissertation doesn't have
anything to do with whether or not I can write a 10-page Quick Start user's
guide or a 2-page executive summary for a funding proposal.  I write poetry
and read posmodern theory, but that doesn't mean my user manuals read like
Faulkner.  As a writer, I aim my texts for my intended audience.

>
>And then there's the huge chip that many academics seem to carry on their
>shoulders, which I would think would cause them neck and back pain after a
>while.  Would I hire somebody who whines and fusses about how unfair the
>business world is?  For crying out loud, no!  We don't need any more
moaning --
>we want somebody with a cheerful, can-do attitude and the experience to
back it
>up!

Since I've already gone on long enough (my academic wordiness coming out, I
suppose), all I can say is that this is a pointless generalization.  Most
academics, particularly the younger ones I know, if they whine about
anything direct their energy toward the unfairness of the academic life --
the demands of grad school and the need to publish multiple arciles before
you finish your degree in order to get a job, the life of the adjunct
instructor who works for slave wages, the fact that there are too many PhDs
and not enough jobs, the rising class size and course loads demanded by
budget cuts in most colleges, etc.  Not many academics I know are whining
about the unfairness of the business world; lots of them are hanging up the
tenure track and turning to professions that will pay them a living wage.
And we're pretty damn grateful to get those jobs given the student loans
we've amassed.

As for my "credibility" on these issues -- I've got a BS in chemical
engineering, worked 2 years as a research engineer, got an MA in English
and taught two years before going on for a PhD and teaching during most of
graduate school.  I've written a dissertation, published academic articles
and given conference papers, written funding proposals for non-profit
groups (that netted beau coups bucks), edited textbooks, done a bit of
journalism, and written users manuals, among other things.

Now that I've vented, I'll go back to writing like Hemingway.

Marie

Marie C. Paretti
Department of English                           Recognition Research, Inc.
University of Wisconsin - Madison        Blacksburg, Virginia
mparetti -at- facstaff -dot- wisc -dot- edu                        mparetti -at- rrinc -dot- com

               Sometimes I feel like a dog
               standin' on a tool box
               in the back of a pickup truck
               doin' 90 round a corner
               just tryin' to hang on for dear life.
                                                      James Bonamy

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