Have you seen my marbles?

For all those "nu-uh, academic texts need to use complex words for complex concepts" - I agree, and yet I have read papers as needlessly pompous and inaccessible as the parody above. Two things can be true at once

The worst thing is I understood that tweet without difficulty. I swear I have read some papers that make that parody look clear and succinct.

The proper terminology is needed to be specific, yes, but wording should never be complicated just because it can be.

I just can't help but disagree with academics' need to use jargon and complexity. Look. Being a lawyer means using a lot of jargon and trying to explain complicated concepts. But good legal writing means trying to make those concepts accessible. You can have a dialogue with experts within your community while also being clear and concise. It's literally my job to do that.

As someone who now gets to edit other people’s formal writing, I think one of the main issues is when people are trying to be fancy they use extremely lengthy, complex sentences. You can use jargon without being opaque if your sentence structure is clear and straightforward. But people with legal/academic backgrounds put so many asides in their writing in the name of specificity that it’s difficult to understand them in the first read through. I’m a huge proponent of footnotes and bullet points to add clarification without bogging down the point.

Example edit of the above:

The opacity of academic prose perpetuates exclusion to the detriment of academic research.

Key drivers:

Outcomes:

You obviously wouldn’t use this style for a paper, but I am confident the structure makes it more accessible without changing the jargon.

This is brilliant. When I can't use bulleted list, I will: (1) separate things internally like this, or (2) just use short sentences.

@palaquinn relevant to your project with your former coworker and to the stuff you're dealing with right now