by Victoria Đỗ

Of the habits I have encountered in students’ writing, the issue I was struck by most this semester was “wordiness.”  In particular, the style of overly formal, quasi-authoritative language that employs jargon more for its style than its substance.  Perhaps because reading this type of writing is like reliving my early days as a writer, this specific challenge stands out to me. However, virtual and hybrid instruction during the pandemic has thrown the effect into sharper relief.  Because it has been challenging for students and I to get acquainted through Zoom, the lack of clarity resulting from excess verbosity felt even more unclear.  It has thus confirmed my suspicion that issues like wordiness, while they manifest as stylistic habits on the surface, are actually a symptom of an underlying interpersonal issue, specifically lack of a concept of the reader.  After all, the first question I received in each section this semester and in ones before was, “What exactly is a TA?”  I think my answer to this question changes slightly with each course, so technically I, myself, have a fuzzy concept of their reader, too. 

In hindsight, I realized I never even suggested that students try my own trick for cutting academic wordiness: pretend you are writing to a dear, old friend; someone specific who is not your professor or TA (whatever that is) with whom you share mutual respect.

While there is an extended conversation about the concept of audience to be had throughout a writing course, I feel that this concrete visualization is an easy first step because it actualizes a concrete image of a reader instead of an abstracted caricature of an intellectual authority.  It is intended to have the immediate effect of quelling the anxious mindset, but I wonder if it could also serve a more fundamental purpose—that of being mindful of divorcing academic writing from popular audiences.  This is not to argue that scholarly terminology does not deserve an important place for nurturing the complexity and nuance of highly specialized knowledge.  However, it is to suggest that using creative ways of addressing the audience gap in undergraduate writing courses is a worthwhile effort for the preservation of academic institutions. 

The attempt might be counterintuitive.  It is certainly worth acknowledging the risk that aiming at “non-academic” readers would result in writing that oversimplifies precious complexity.  However, a superficial wall of jargon blocks off communication completely.  At least for the students experimenting with ambitious concepts, being accountable to a “general audience” could lead to a transformative improvement in their learning once they realize it is actually harder to do, not easier. 

Perhaps writing to the “non-academic” reader is one of the smartest things any writer can do. 

I once received a memorable piece of advice from a seminar in which a guest speaker with a distinguished career discussed her brilliant book recently released through a well-known trade publisher.  She mentioned that early on in the process a colleague had asked her if she was concerned about having to “dumb down” the information.  She explained that for a broader audience your writing actually needs to “smarten up.”  This anecdote has stuck with me not only because it revealed an underlying assumption about academic writing, but because it turns it on its head in an inspiring way.  Perhaps writing to the “non-academic” reader is one of the smartest things any writer can do.