I'm putting myself into an awful cycle... staying up LATE... when work starts back up in September, getting back on track will be dreadful. Furthermore, why is it that during the schoolyear, I can't stay up "late," even on a Saturday night? So annoying.
Just read the Journal of Adolescent/Adult Lit article for Wednesday. I actually enjoyed reading it. The sentences were written normally; everything was comprehensible. When I finished reading the article, I actually recalled information. I felt that my time had been spent well.
I have an "issue" with academic journals and publications. The language is so unneccessarily awkward and lengthy- kind of reminds me of reading Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school--- does each sentence have to be 50 words long? Is this some kind of rule in the world of academia?
I used to be obsessed with using "big vocabulary"- this is something that admirers of language tend to go through, especially in high school and college. Instead of large, we say voluminous. Instead of small, we say minute. Instead of sadness, we say melancholy[we LOVE melancholy because it can be BOTH an adjective and noun- woo hoo!] . If we're really feeling uppity, instead of sad, we say...lugubrious?!? Now I am not saying that there is anything wrong with big words, but if they sound out of place or if they confuse the reader, then they are pointless [in that particular piece of writing].
I'll never forget how one of my college professors spoke of the act of writing: The goal of the writer is to communicate to the reader. Sounds so obvious, but it is one of those things that you have to hear aloud.
You can use all the fancy words you want, but if your reader is left perplexed, then you might as well throw your Roget's in the trash.
Yay for the scholars and researchers who write in English instead of in Academic Snobberish!
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