quick rant
i’m so tired of over the top “intellectual” vocabulary in academia. a lot of concepts could be explained with simple words and would get the point across just as well, or better, and additionally make the conversation more accessible to those outside of a specific field. Why do you need to use big smart words to explain simple things? Is it because it tickles your ego when people need 10 minutes to comprehend one sentence? argh
I yell at any co worker about exactly this. We even deal with the public and they use terms and jargon no one will understand it leads to mistakes.
It’s just weird gatekeeping.
Oddly enough multiple classes I took at uni even covered communicating with simple terms, being understandable, and not using jargon. Yet here we are still…
Funny thing is that psych papers tend to be very readable. So scientists can only communicate effectively if they exclusively study the human mind lol
What kills me a little is when someone has to come up with some nebulous acronym that we’re all supposed to know but no one ever defines it at the beginning of the document. In EEG we like to change the name of what are now known as lateralized periodic discharges. I have a document with about 25 different terms that all describe different terminology that’s been used to describe that EEG finding.
Meanwhile I’m in here thinking, I wonder what EEG means?
I’m not sure but I think that comment might be clever satire
It’s when you put electrodes on someone’s head and measure the electricity on the surface of their brain.
See how desensitized I am to that, electroencephalography. Electro- electronic, encephalo- head, graph- record, electronic head record, those wavy lines from the brain.
I despise this, too. I work in a pretty technical field and actively throw bricks at people who write like this.
Can I join you in your next brick throwing?
Let’s hurl a brick-y mart…
thank you for your service o7
Honestly. Working with academics in science was so annoying at times exactly because too many academics talk just like this.
Too often I sat with them wishing I could just tell them to speak plainly FFS - unnecessarily complex, overly specific jargon doesn’t make you look any better, it makes you look smarmy.
They’re probably insecure and intelligence and people’s perception of it is their only crutch.
I wouldn’t assume malice in all cases. Maybe they just aren’t great at breaking down complex subjects into plain language because it’s complex. Being an effective communicator and teacher is a skill that needs a lot of patience, practice, development, and feedback in order to get good, especially when trying to convey ideas through speech.
Einstein said if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. And drag trusts Einstein, because he was an expert at understanding complicated things.
The argument is also sometimes as dumb as it looks
My life got so much better when I started assuming the former.
Yes
Why not both?
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