[Olumde]

A few decades back when I was a PhD student a British university I taught an undergraduate class and I noticed that the quality of writing in their examination papers and projects was clunky and awkward, in contrast to the admirable, free-flowing, everyday style the way they wrote (as they spoke) on their student bulletin boards. I used to wonder why they didn't write like this in their classwork.

Years later, when writing my thesis I'd routinely find myself at a loss of how to communicate a concept. The solution was always to write down my answer to the question "what are you trying to say".

[parpfish]

Young academics try to signal that they know what they’re doing so they end up cargo-culting dense technical writing that they can’t yield well and just end up with bad writing.

It takes a lot of confidence to write academic material in a natural conversational tone because they’ve internalized a rule that says “if it’s easy to understand, I won’t come off as smart enough to belong”.

[BrandoElFollito]

Confidence and support.

I wrote my 45 pages PhD thesis (physics) in a more conversational tone, using "I" and skipping the introduction (half a page to say that if you need an introduction it is better to read this and that, instead of poorly copied pasted text here).

I got a 5:2 acceptance from the jury (which is extremely rare, normally this is 7:0), with the two saying that the content is very good, but I am desacralizing science... I told them that I am proud of these two rejections there and my wonderful thesis director (truly a fantastic person) jumped in to avoid some brawl :)

[elzbardico]

I don't know you. But you are one my heroes now.

[BrandoElFollito]

Thanks but I ultimately left academia.

Since the beginning I could not stand the medieval system where there is a deference towards senior staff only found elsewhere in North Korea and religion. This did not end well, with some exchanges such as the one from an emeritus professor, when learning that I will be doing simulations and neural networks in physics said "yes, this is for the weaker students, the ones that do not understand physics", to what I replied "you are right, professor, to do what we do requires a minimum of intelligence that some do not have and are blissfully unaware of that". This set the tone.

I also had a theoretical physics prof that was super cold and hard with us, showing how much we don't know. We hated him with all our heart. At some point he told me "the more intelligent students have found out by now that at year 4 you can call me by my first name". To what I replied "ah, I was not aware of that, professor". I thought the final, very hard oral exam would be a disaster. I got 5 questions, 4 of which I went though easily, and the last one was incredibly hard. I thought "ok, so he got me". After the exam he said "well, the last question was for the best students I am afraid. I can only give you 20/20 and not 25/20 if you had it right...". This is where I discovered that assholeness and fairness live in two independent quantum states :) A few years later I told him "you know, we will never be friends but I will never forget how fair and professional you were during the exam. You set for me a model I will be proud to follow".

My thesis director was an angel. He was very senior in the university (vice-rector at some point) and helped me to navigate the muddy waters of academia. He was glad that someone was shaking the status quo and was cleaning up after me and smoothing things out. I wanted to add him as a co-author on my best paper, in a very prestigious journal and he said "I have all the prestige I need, do not dilute your work". He was quite stressed with my 45 pages PhD thesis but said "well, you will be the one belly dancing et the defense". He was really something, I miss him a lot.

I left academia for the industry, another medieval system but at least I was much better paid and could build my own teams to go ahead. But I miss teaching a lot.

[stavros]

> they end up cargo-culting dense technical writing that they can’t yield well and just end up with bad writing.

It's "wield". I wasn't going to correct it but the irony was too much to pass up.

[parpfish]

Id like to say that I made a ton of typos to prove I’m not ai, but it’s usually just because autocorrect on my phone is going crazy

[stavros]

I hate it when it "corrects" already-correct words just because they're rare.

[atoav]

The sociologist Bourdieu has written about social capital and the impact of the ductus people aquire. Simplified this is why rich people of old money do not respect the new rich: Sure they have the money, but they do not have the taste, the manierisms, the language, etc. Being part of that part of society is more than just having money.

These details are a more important mechanism for social groups to differenciate themselves with than most people consciously realise in their day to day lives. Yet we constantly decide by minor details that someone does or does not belong to a group. Maybe a steelworker will notice by the way you talk that you never worked in manual labor even if you dress the part.

Most people tend to have multiple such learned manierisms, meaning you will walk, sit, talk differently with your male friends than in an academic setting or with your family for example.

So when young students enter university they undergo a massive adjustment phase where they relate their existing manierisms to the new manierisms they encounter. This is all in order to become and stay part of the group. There is of course a perception how one "is supposed to" write in academia and students try to emulate this to the best of their ability, which may or may not yield good results. Eventually they find their own academic language and aquired tastes.

[bitwize]

Something to add to your brain's STEERING.md file then.