In Favor of the Gobbledygook: A Position Paper on Steven Pinkers Why Academics Stink at WritingIs academic writing really that bad? In his article, Why Academics Stink at Writing, Steven Pinker seems to think so. He then goes on citing eleven possible reasons to fuel and reveal that there are supporting facts to the stereotype of academese being a bamboozling, gobbledygook mind-job for any outsider who might be put to the task of digesting such contents. So the issue, at hand is if academic writing, as a genre, one that is meant to be undecipherable, complicated and inaccessible as a piece of written material. I personally do not think academic writing stinks. Difficult may be a more apt word to describe it. Off the top, I believe it is meant to be difficult because one cannot be expected to break down sophisticated arenas of knowledge subjects and convey the information into elementary concepts which can be easily regurgitated by the brain as easily as one chows down a bowl of cereal. Academic writing may be drab and at first, incomprehensible to the unprepared mind, but it does not reek of agonizing stench. It is not the all-encompassing generalization that Pinker wants you to believe and rely on. Why should this argument matter in a now-future world where our daily reading consists of a steady stream of Buzzfeed, listicles and click-bait worthy internet articles? It matters because our academic institutions are here to stay; because our professors will still continue to hold classes in the classroom; and they will still, from time to time, publish their lifes work in university presses and journals. The education system, the tenure track, and these scholars will still be here, and there is no sign of them being swept off under the rug like the newspaper and now, the FM radio. Addressing the issue of the quality of scholarly work that is written does matter, even to outsiders like you and me. The Dartmouth University Institute for Writing and Rhetoric (Dartmouth University, 2014) describes the nature of academic writing in 3 points: First, academic writing is writing done by scholars for other scholars; second, academic writing is devoted to topics and questions that are of interest to the academic community; and lastly, academic writing should present the reader with an informed argument. Taking heed from this, we can then contend that Pinkers stance that academic is hinged on the cognitive blind spot, he calls the Curse of Knowledge cannot stand on all fours, primarily because academic writing relies on the assumption that its target reader, the fellow scholar, is also learned on the subject matter written about. Amanda Klein (2015), in her online blog, describes this type of writing as, Academese that slow nuanced ponderous way of seeing the world we are told, is a symptom of academias pretensions. But I think its one of our only saving graces. She goes on to say that, With academic writing, is that its core the creation of careful, accurate ideas about the world are born of research and revision and, most important of all, time. Time is needed. But our world is increasingly regulated by the ethic of the instant. We are losing our patience. We need content that comes quickly and often, content that can be read during a short morning commute or a long dump (sorry for the vulgarity, Ma), content that can be tweeted and retweeted and Tumblred and bit-lyed. And that content is great. Its filled with interesting and dynamic ideas. But this content cannot replace the deep structures of thought that come from research and revision and time. Joshua Rothman (Rothman, 2014) explains that this writing style is one that has been created by the world the scholars live in. He states, Professors didnt sit down and decide to make academic writing this way, any more than journalists sat down and decided to invent listicles. Academic writing is the way it is because its part of a system. Professors live inside that system and have made peace with it. But every now and then, someone from outside the system swoops in to blame professors for the writing style that theyve inherited. While Pinker might have questioned why academics not rely on terms that readers can easily understand, Rothman explains that, If journalists sound friendly, thats because theyre writing for strangers. With academics, its the reverse. So it may be then assumed that scholars prior to churning out their jargon and their complex prose are aware of the level of understanding their target readers are situated in. The reverse strategy indicates that their style of writing is not cut and dry or too technical for their audience. Academic writing, as opposed to populist writing, engages the type of reader who is accustomed to the chunk of knowledge and research that requires the use of terms and theories that seem foreign to the uninformed mind, or to the leisurely reader-outsider. Writing for the academic and writing for the world have different purposes and functions and audiences. As Klein puts it: We need to understand the conditions under which claims can be made and what facts are necessary before assertions can be made. Thats why articles are peer-reviewed and book monographs are carefully vetted before publication. Writers who are not experts can pick up these documents and read them and thencite them! In academia we call this scholarship. (Klein, 2015) While I may agree that everyday commonplace language might be the perfect mode of discourse, it may be the swiftest mode of conveying knowledge and ideas that matter; not just between scholars, but among non-scholars like you and me. Cass Sustein (Sustein, 2014) points out, Plain language has its virtues, and some academic jargon is pointlessly obscure, but when specialists are speaking to other specialists, its perfectly fine to use specialized language. These passages could be translated into ordinary language only at a high cost, resulting in a loss of precision, excessive length and unnecessary definitions. For the intended audience, phrases such as concavity of the utility function, the binary signal case and leximin rule are familiar, not arcane.I humbly contend that Pinkers symptomatic term for the case of bad academic writing should not be likened to the all-familiar curses we have read as children from our favourite fairy tales. Academic writing is not a disease we can cure with a shift towards a populist mode of relaying discourse. It cannot be made easily digestible and comprehended by the unlearned mind. If we veer towards simplistic jargon, the fog cannot be cleared by switching to a different language set. Clarity and understandable scholarly work is not equated by avoiding terminology, disdaining the use of technicality and abstract nouns. The fog is lifted by demanding the reader, the outsider, non-scholars like you and me, to work up the mental veracity required by digesting these materials as necessary brain vegetables; meta-concepts, chunks and gobbledygook. As my mother used to say, they wont taste good at first. But they do wonders for your brain.