To Be a Successful Writer, Avoid Academic Writing

Gary North - April 29, 2016

They say that old dogs don't learn new tricks. Well, I am an old dog, and I have just learned a new trick.

So, I guess the old saying isn't true. I guess they are wrong. A universal negative is refuted by a single positive.

I have at last come to my senses. It has taken 60 years.

I am beginning to outline my magnum opus, the culmination of my calling, which began in 1960. I am going to write my book on Christian economics. It will be a treatise, not a textbook. I never intend to write a textbook, because textbooks have to be written to satisfy committees, and the worst thing that any nonfiction author can do is to write for a committee. I don't mean the worst thing he can do financially; I mean the worst thing he can do aesthetically.

For about 40 years, I have been writing direct response advertising copy. This is the best possible way for a nonfiction author to learn how to motivate people. This is the best way to learn economy of language. As far as I know, the only two authors in the field of free market economics who write academic materials and direct response copy are Mark Skousen and I. We have both been doing this for 40 years. He has written a textbook on economics. I have not.

One of the earliest exercises we have in writing essays, at least in my generation, is the ritual return to school essay, "What I Did Over the Summer." I could never figure out why the teacher wanted to know what I did over the summer. It was only after I was long out of school that I finally figured it out: she was trying to find out how well each of the students could write. This must have been a depressing exercise for her, just as it was for the rest of us.

Nevertheless, in retrospect it was a good exercise. It was a good exercise for one reason: the word "I" -- the vertical pronoun. This word is crucial for honesty. It reveals to the reader a crucial fact about the writer. It personalizes the writer. With respect to nonfiction, the writer should be personalized.

PHONY IMPERSONALISM

Academia adopts a phony impersonalism as its rhetorical standard. We read this on Purdue University's site:

Keep your language neutral

During your studies, it is likely that you will have the opportunity to write about topics that inspire or infuriate you. Regardless of your passion for a topic, academic audiences prefer clear, precise, and neutral descriptions to emotional or moralistic language. For example:

Education is the single most important factor in career success.

This is a statement that an overwhelming majority of people would agree with, but saying that education is the single most important factor tells readers more about your response to education than about education's real role in having a successful career. When academic readers see this, it leads them to believe that you cannot help imposing your attitudes on a subject. A more neutral and persuasive way of writing would be:

[The plodding academic committee that wrote this forgot to include any example. Too bad. I would have had fun with it.]

Education is one important factor in career success. Don't be extreme. Academic readers are often suspicious of superlative claims. These are statements that begin with "the most" or "the least" or end with "--est," and are applied to all situations. You can make it less extreme by narrowing the situations in which the statement is true.

This cripples anyone who is trying to write persuasively for non-academics, which means (1) people with money to spend; (2) people who are willing to take risks; and (3) people who are in the real world of market competition.

It gets worse. Over years of training, young writers are taught to avoid the vertical pronoun. They are told to substitute the word "we" for "I." There is even a technical name for this "we": the implicit we.

The following is posted on the University of Birmingham library's site:

1.21 Avoiding personal language

The question of whether or not it is acceptable to use personal language in your writing is not clear cut. It is one of those areas where you need to check with your course tutors what their policy is: on some courses it is OK to make your writing fairly personal and subjective; on others it is not permissable. It depends as well on the type of writing you are doing.

1. Traditionally, academic writing was impersonal: you would not be able to use words like I, my etc. There has, however, been a shift in this approach over the past few years. Maybe in line with a general move towards more accountability in some walks of life (politicians say "I" a lot more nowadays), some academic writing has become more personal. There may too be an influence from the United States here. You must check on your course, though.

In general, it is probably best not to use too much personal language. Academic writing should very often be objective, with a lack of personal commitment, and being subjective may weaken your argument and lay you open to disagreement or criticism. However, there are times when personal language may be more appropriate; for example, when writing conclusions and when you want to make it clear that it is in fact your personal opinion that you are expressing, rather than someone else's. Also, if you are describing what you actually did, for example on work placement, personal language is often unavoidable.

Two other general points:

It's best not to refer to the reader as "you". Don't write, for example, As you can see in Figure 1. Use one of the ways shown below to avoid this.

It's also best not to refer to yourself as "we". You will see this in some books, but it is somewhat old-fashioned, and may be regarded as pompous or pretentious. Leave the "royal we" for the Queen! And don't refer to yourself as "the author", as it can get very confusing if you're making references to other authors; it may not be clear who actually said what. The only time it is permissable to use "we" is if you are writing about groupwork and saying what you did as a group.

How to avoid personal language

There are three main ways of doing this:

use a passive rather than an active verb

use an impersonal phrase such as it is believed

make words such as the essay, this section etc the subject of the sentence

This is mostly bad advice. This is because it comes from an academic site.

Note: Do not trust the grammatical judgment of anyone who writes of groupwork.

The following is ghastly advice.

Instead of:

In my essay I will discuss the role of the ombudsman. (=active verb)

You could write:

In this essay the role of the ombudsman will be discussed. (=passive verb)

Instead of:

I have divided the chapter into three sections.

Better:

The chapter is divided into three sections.

Academia is self-beguiled by the fallacious ideal of impersonalism. Yet academia is highly personal. Professors are allowed to flunk students for any reasons that please them, and then hide the true reasons. Rarely do departments call into question a faculty member's grading system.

My advice:

1. You are saying something; so, use "I," not "we."

2. Do not use the passive voice if you can avoid it -- and you can. (High school English teachers work hard to persuade students to honor this principle; then university professors discourage it.)

Some universities are grudgingly surrendering this phony impersonalism. Here is an example. But on the whole, most faculty members enforce the old tradition.

But it has taken me 60 years to apply this.

I intend to write my magnum opus by beginning with this word: "you." I'm going to use it as much as I can. Textbooks never do this.

I am trying to convince people. But I learned as a direct response copywriter never to write for a committee; always write for an individual. You may win over the committee, but only if you write to an individual.

The most powerful two words in direct response copywriting are these: you and free. That is why I intend to use a lot of "you's." (Is there such a word? There is now.) My book is going to be a 1,000-page direct response advertisement. I'm calling readers to commit. That means I am going to use direct response copywriting techniques, including highly personal language. I am not going to use the word "we" unless (1) I am inviting someone to join me, or (2) I am reporting on the findings of a joint effort.

CONCLUSIONS

The goal of non-fiction writing ought to be to persuade people. If it isn't, then why bother to write? The whole point of nonfiction writing is to get to the truth. The point of getting to the truth is to persuade people to change their thinking, their behavior, and their vision.

Why adopt the stultifying stylistic aesthetics of the world of academia? People in academia are late adopters. They pretend to be leading the pack, yet they are invariably following the lead of the academic guild to which they belong. This means a handful of old men and two or three token women. (I am aware of no social science in which more than a dozen women have made academic contributions that are enforced by the guild. In economics, there has been only one, Joan Robinson, a peripheral Keynesian. Academic guilds are old boy networks. They may pretend otherwise for public consumption, but they know this is the reality, and so to the women who are subordinate to them.)

So, I strongly recommend that you avoid the needless straitjacket of academia. Use the word "I." Use the word "you." Don't write for a committee. Don't indulge in phony impersonalism. Say in print what you would say in person. You may actually persuade the reader this way.