3/21/19
Source Article: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-needless-complexity-of-academic-writing
The article I decided to evaluate was posted to getpocket.com and attributed to The Atlantic. It was written by Victoria Clayton in 2015. While that may seem outdated, it actually makes it so the article can be judged as to how good its claims actually were. The article touches on experts in their field using complex language that most cannot comprehend in modern academic journals and its main premise is how ugly “academic language” can be in general. This main claim can be best described by Deborah S. Bosley, a former English professor at the University of North Carolina; “Academics, in general, don’t think about the public; they don’t think about the average person, and they don’t even think about their students when they write.”
The article cites many professors, institutions and other articles within itself. With the information presented, the article seems sound logically. All sources are relevant and do not have any potential influencing factors that would skew the information being reported. The whole idea of academic jargon being too complicated for the average reader or someone unfamiliar with the particular field of study is one that is more of a problem than it has ever been.
it appears that this is the last version of this article, so there really isn’t an easy way to determine if this article has aged well in its claim. However the article itself is very well written and supports its claims to create a pretty solid argument.
*insert creative name here* 