Textbook Authorship

Academic Authors Can't Write! --Part 2

Tests of student writing performance often show that students need more help in developing topics—using detail and citing examples (Newkirk, 1999). As a publisher (and former academic and textbook editor), I often find precisely the same problems in the writings of students’ instructors--manuscripts with page after page of unrelentingly abstract prose, excessive jargon, paragraph after paragraph on constructs with no hint that they have empirical analogs in the real world. This kind of writing does not raise or maintain intellectual standards; it prevents or impedes learning!

When asked to provide topical development with expository details and concrete examples, many academic authors are offended. They call it dumbing down. My beef is with academics who attribute dumbing down to textbook publishers as an excuse for their bad writing.

Revising expository writing to make it accessible to learners is not and should not involve dumbing down in either form or intent. Offering concrete examples is not dumbing down, for example. Concrete elaborations let readers imagine, visualize, or identify with representations or exemplars of an abstraction. This vicarious experience, in turn, engenders self-confidence in learners, who more readily rise to the challenge of grasping the difficult or complex idea in aid of which the concrete example was advanced.

A challenge with professors as authors is that many tend to regard their works as sacrosanct products of their intellect and standing, both hard-won. Frequently, then, they interpret requests for revision or development of their manuscript as the publisher’s nefarious effort either to abridge academic freedom or to dumb down a scholarly work. These are misconceptions. There are legitimate reasons, such as the following, that editors might ask textbook authors to change their organization or content.

• The book will be too long for its intended market or predetermined level of investment and has to be cut.
• Concepts lack adequate elaboration through concrete examples.
• Sources are not cited.
• Undocumented opinions are presented as facts.
• Undocumented facts seem inaccurate or misleading.
• Information seems outdated or lacks currency.
• Topical coverage seems unbalanced, biased, or unexpected for the course.
• Material is judged to be strongly offensive to some or all readers.
• Examples, language, or expression are inappropriate to the intended reader, course, or subject.
• Vocabulary level is inappropriate for the course level.
• The writing is ungrammatical, wordy, or full of “pomo-babble.”
• Digressions or redundancy compromise meaning or coherence.
• Material is too similar to that in competing textbooks.
• Material invites claims of plagiarism or copyright infringement.
• Chapters lack appropriate apparatus and pedagogy.
• The manuscript departs significantly from the previously agreed-upon book plan.

None of these reasons involves a request to dumb down. Thus, academic authors should not make this claim to excuse writing that is bad or inappropriate to their audience, course, or mission. Nor should they take it upon themselves to adulterate the knowledge they are attempting to convey. Students—whatever their state of knowledge—can detect gratuitously dumbed-down prose in an instant and are justifiably insulted. Dumbed-down prose is, in Orwell’s beloved cuttlefish ink analogy, insincere (Orwell, 1946).

In truth, textbooks need to be clear, coherent, and concise—the three C’s championed by William Strunk so long ago (1918). In addition, textbooks need to address their true readers—the actual students whose learning is at stake, not the professor’s dissertation committee, journal review board, or tenure committee, not colleagues, critics, or prize panels. On the other hand, meeting learners “where they are” in their intellectual development does not require leaving out either big words or big ideas, especially when glossaries or pronunciation guides are provided in textbooks. Rather, meeting learners “where they are” requires clarity, coherence, and concision of exposition. Knowledge about learning also is important, for in the end analysis, textbook writing is teaching.

The solution? I think institutions of higher learning, academic departments, professional degree programs, and scholarly publications should provide more opportunities (and more rewards) for academics to learn to write sound expository prose. We also can hope for a more balanced attitude toward textbook publishing as both a vital form of teaching and a valid form of scholarship.

Labels: academic authors, academic writing, textbook writing

posted by Mary Ellen Lepionka @ 9:41 AM