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Jens 'n' Frens |
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Our good friend Kate notes that poor writing is not necessarily good writing — cf. Alan Sokal — but I think what she says loses the point that there are times when precision is to be valued over broad accessibility — i.e. when writing for specialists. Writing for the public will necessarily be hampered by the need to avoid a degree of jargon, as well as the need to spell out what might be taken as common knowledge elsewhere. I think it is more the case in physics than in law (though it is probably true in both) that a degree of writing for the public consists in figuring out how to lie in the least egregious manner possible without losing the reader; it is more true of economics (and perhaps law) than of physics that there are terms that are spelled and pronounced just like words outside of the field, and have meanings that only superficially resemble those to which they are cognate. ("Efficiency" is the example that keeps pounding in my brain.) |
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