This may not be the appropriate place for me to gush, but, I’m in love. Rachel Toor is my new favorite person on the planet. I just finished reading her article in The Chronicle entitled “Bad Writing and Bad Thinking“. She writes of a recent experience she had talking to a graduate class in physical education.
The students all summarily responded that reading articles was tedious and inaccessible to them. Worse, they thought they would all need to learn how to write like that in order to make it in academia.

Not so, argues Rachel Toor. In fact, using George Orwell’s 1964 essay called “Politics and the English Language“, Rachel makes a compelling case that, in the words of Ogden Nash, “Too smart is dumb”.

People have become so used to obtuse writing, especially in academia, that they think it’s the right way. Quite the opposite: falling back on bad habits (like using big words just to seem smart) is a mark of laziness. And until we get rid of our bad writing habits, we won’t be able to think as clearly as we should.

There are many more examples of bad habits that writers fall into that really just show laziness and a lack of clarity. Oh, one last request: when you read all about these bad habits, just know that I admit I am lazy and unclear.