◆ Does the sentence say exactly what you want? Read it aloud.
If anything niggles at the back of your mind, if you have
some undefined uncertainty about the sentence, always
rewrite it.
Choosing vocabulary
We only think through the medium of words.
Abbé Etienne de Condillac^9How you pick words makes a difference to how sentences work.
Doctoral authors are renowned for overusing jargon and
producing pompous prose, perhaps wrongly but certainly not
without some cause. In the humanities and social sciences
many people routinely substitute longer noun forms of words
where they could use short verb forms, saying ‘configuration’
instead of ‘configuring’ just to get an extra syllable. Or they
choose complex forms of words which sound more abstruse,
for very little reason. For instance, ‘methodology’ means the
science or study of methods, but many social scientists use it
just to replace ‘method’ itself, because it seems to give a more
‘professional’ feel to do so.
You cannot avoid necessary jargon in your discipline, nor
should you try to do so. Academic jargon often does specialist
things, has more precise meanings and allows expositions or
conversations to quickly reach targetted subjects which would
be hard to reach or cumbersome to define in other ways. But
you should maintain a constant check that you fully appreciate
the meanings of words you use. Do not pointlessly substitute
portentous vocabulary for ordinary language words where
there is no extra value in doing so. In general, try to write as
you would speak if you were sitting across the table from some-
one in your discipline and giving a carefully grammatical oral
explanation of your work. Trying for a professional ‘voice’ more
strained or more pompous than you would use in such a
considered conversation will not make your work seem more
doctoral. It will make it seem inauthentic, and perhaps
ungrounded, since you will be more likely to make mistakes in
meaning.
WRITING CLEARLY◆ 117