Which window should I throw you from? – by Anna
My supervisor and I are having a, erm, disagreement about the formality of the language in my thesis. She seems to think it has to be extremely formal at all times, even to the point where she strikes through phrases like 'cutting down the task at hand' or 'straining at the seams' as too colloquial.
A particular bugbear of hers is when I end a sentence with a preposition. I'm perfectly aware that there is supposedly a grammatical rule against this! I disagree with it because I think the acrobatics a writer has to go through to avoid it are totally pointless and don't achieve anything other than pleasing some grammar freaks somewhere. Yet every time I get a chapter back from her, she painstakingly takes me through every one of my grammatical 'errors'. Better use of time, please?!
This is really starting to get on my nerves. One problem is that I don't write (or think) formally. I struggle enough with just getting the words on the page in the first place, without having this additional devil on my shoulder about whether it's formal enough to satisfy some arbitrary rules!
And for another thing, I'm really unclear on what purpose such formality would serve. Replacing an expression everyone knows with some longer words that mean basically the same thing doesn't create more clarity; if anything the opposite is true.
The supervisor seems to see it as a basic requirement of writing a thesis, like having footnotes or a bibliography, but I really don't see it that way and it feels like this is just an unexamined assumption on her part.
Besides which, it doesn't seem like this is universal belief even within academia. Many of the most famous academics are often the least formal in their language. I think using slightly less formal turns-of-phrase makes you sound as though you've mastered the material.
Maybe y'all can help me out on this one though? Is this a problem anyone else has encountered?
By the way, my favourite ever response to correcting a grammatical mistake is in With Honors, this cheesy film from the early 1990s starring Brendan Fraser as a Harvard student and Joe Pesci as a homeless guy, who strike up an unlikely friendship. Fraser takes Pesci to one of his lectures, where he starts an argument with a snooty professor. Finally, fed up, Pesci says:
Pesci: 'Which door do I leave from?'
Professor: 'At Harvard, we don't end our sentences with a preposition.'
Pesci: 'Fine. Which door do I leave from, asshole?'
(Immortal movie moment, in my opinion.)
Anna Sloan
30 Jan 2012 11:00
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Tags: Academese Anna Writing Up
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[Skip to the latest comment]William Thomas
I have to agree with you on this one. Whilst I am unashamedly pedantic on spelling (I’m really good at Scrabble) I also hate this idea that language is fixed in time and impervious to change. Language is surely about communication and understanding, so using archaic rules as barriers between your writing process and the reader’s understanding makes no sense. It’s also a matter of being interesting. Like you say, some of the most respected academics write less formally than the standard. A slight indication of the writer’s personality within their tone doesn’t necessarily interfere with the argument but still makes for a more compelling read.
I like Richard Schechner’s writing. He puts things in boxes.
30 Jan 2012, 11:43
Nav
‘One problem is that I don’t write (or think) formally. I struggle enough with just getting the words on the page in the first place, without having this additional devil on my shoulder about whether it’s formal enough to satisfy some arbitrary rules!’ – I thought I was the only phd student, thanks for making me better :-)
30 Jan 2012, 11:59
Christine Waddington
You are putting your work out to the academic community and so having a level of formality to your thesis will make it sound professional.
But of course you don’t want to lose your writing style and make it sound as dull as dishwater.
On the subject of colloquialisms I agree with your supervisor because your work may be read by people who do not have english as a first language. Because english is such a rich language, with its history influenced by many cultures, we have a wide range of little phrases that non-natives find just plain confusing.
E.g. What exactly did it mean when I said “make it sound as dull as dishwater”? An American in New York might get what I mean but would someone who’s grown up in Shanghai understand?
I have learnt in the last year getting the academic content into word is easy compared to the hours and hours rewriting the damn thing.
30 Jan 2012, 12:22
Peter Kirwan
I fundamentally agree with you, especially when it comes to aspects such as ending sentences with prepositions. I have a habit of splitting infinitives, which often look ugly but sometimes, Goddamnit, just make more sense.
However, i think it’s important not to treat it as as simple difference of opinion between two people. It’s one thing for senior academics to write as informally as they please, but as PhD students we’ve not yet earned the right to do that (in the eyes of the system, at least). The PhD’s a formal qualification, which gets examined within certain structures. Just as we learned writing formally as children and learned how to break the rules as adults, so there’s a sense of needing to prove that we can write according to the ‘rules’ first, and experiment with form on someone else’s time.
The red pen is irksome at the moment; but if your examiners are as anal as your supervisor, then you’ll be thanking her in the long run when you have far fewer corrections to do. As I’m sure you’ll have found when marking undergrad work, if something is poorly constructed grammatically, then it does affect the marker’s feelings about the essay as a whole; similarly, it makes sense to use grammar as the system’s conventions dictate, to save yourself potential grief when it really matters.
30 Jan 2012, 12:30
Christine Waddington
Just read this article and it made me think of your blog post:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jan/30/academic-publishing-not-dissertation
It is not just PhD students who get frustrated by ‘academic speak’.
30 Jan 2012, 12:47
Anna Sloan
Oooh, great article! Thanks for the link, Christine. And for the sympathies, everyone.
30 Jan 2012, 13:02
Charlotte Mathieson
aw Anna, that sucks. agreed there is much more you need right now, like constructive advice and positive support!
With my academic writing tutor hat on, I’d say the colloquial expressions/ phrases are a definite no, and as a proofreader I’d always suggest these need to go. But that doesn’t mean you have to lose a slight casual informality, and there are ways of keeping your “voice” whilst maintaining a certain academic formality – I think people often confusing “academic” writing with dry and boring, which it doesn’t need to be (and shouldn’t!)
30 Jan 2012, 13:43
John Speller
Hi Anna,
most importantly, it keeps the plebs out (as suggested already by you and Joe Pesci)
30 Jan 2012, 15:59
Alex Boynton
Rewrite the whole thing in Elizabethan English… That’ll learn her. I’ve always favored informal modes of writing, because A) The best writing should have the same natural flow as spoken English, and B) It’s always refreshing to understand what someone is talking about, without having to disentangle of bunch of jargon. But I think opacity is often a tool by which the dimmer lights of Academia hide concepts that are banal, ill-conceived, or simplistic. A good friend of mine, who had been toiling for a year in his PhD program, tweaking the verbiage to suit various advisers’ complaints about his thesis, finally in frustration turned in his first draft all over again. Done…. they loved it. He is now a tenured professor.
30 Jan 2012, 16:17
Anna Sloan
It totally is to keep the plebs out, except that so many academics are plebs who are trying really hard to hide/transcend their humble roots. So it’s become this grammar-based rite of passage. What a pointless exercise.
30 Jan 2012, 16:55
Hannah Andrews
I completely agree with Peter. I’m afraid I would count as one of those anal people who can’t stand a split infinitive, but I also recognise there are many different ways of expressing yourself in writing.
However, if we think of the PhD as part of our formal academic training, then, from a professional development perspective, it is absolutely crucial that we get things like proper academic expression right. To my mind at least, this includes grammar and punctuation.
This doesn’t, however, curb our (righteous) irritation or hurt feelings when our supervisors point to every little mistake. And I say this as someone who has never been able to use the expression ‘due to’ since my supervisor told me that this “something illiterate people say.”
31 Jan 2012, 11:37
Hannah Andrews
EEK – spot the (totally deliberate) grammatical error in the last sentence of my post!
31 Jan 2012, 11:38
Anna Sloan
I’m perfectly aware that these are the academic conventions and that a PhD is supposed to prove that I know them; I just question the wisdom and usefulness of this particular convention.
31 Jan 2012, 22:47
Bernadette Divall
I’ve been agonising over this for such a long time! In fact, my methodology chapter has been written three times, in three different voices. I spend my life trying to find ways in which to produce words in the style to which my supervisors are accustomed, but still making my own voice heard. I think it will be a battle that goes right to the point of submission.
I had a great conversation with a Professor in the Business School recently, in which he told me he absolutely hates writing articles for the appropriate journals, because they have to be written in a voice quite alien to him. So it seems that the jumping through hoops thing goes way beyond our PhD theses. If we choose that life.
01 Feb 2012, 17:11
Anna Sloan
Interesting, Bernie. I think over the course of this post and conversation I’ve been formulating the opinion that it actually hurts academia for us all to be enslaved to this grammatical beast. Surely we should be paying more attention to what is actually true/authentic rather than what suits some mythical set of standards? Not to mention it would be more accessible for EVERYONE.
02 Feb 2012, 14:18
Roisin
Hi Anna, I’ve just seen this!
Ending a sentence with a preposition isn’t grammatically incorrect. Neither is splitting the infinitive. These were ‘rules’ invented by 18th Century grammarians who were unhappy that English wasn’t more like Latin. Where grammar becomes important is intelligibility – if ending a sentence with a preposition means that your sentence is unintelligible then it’s a problem, but this is rarely (if ever) the case. Ditto the split infinitive. Using colloquialisims is a slightly different matter because, as a commenter said above, they can sometimes obscure your meaning. Anyway – my point is I think you should boldy go (heh) with your own feeling on this!
07 Feb 2012, 13:21
Anna Sloan
Thanks Roisin! I agree completely :) Interesting about the Latin thing, that makes total sense!
07 Feb 2012, 13:29
Lauren Thompson
Am I the only one who had to google “split infinitive” to understand these comments?!
I feel like I have internalised grammar without ever actually learning what all the rules are called. Although I do know that the punctuation at the end of my first sentence is called an interrobang.
A balance of formality and personality is really important to me in my writing. I think I’d rather be wrong than dry!
08 Feb 2012, 09:35
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