From the Chronicle of Higher Education: Bad Writing and Bad Thinking.
They were a lively group of students, and we chatted for an hour, discussing topics we were all interested in. They asked smart questions.
When we were wrapping up, I asked them a question: “What is your relationship to reading and writing?” At that moment, they morphed from T-shirt-clad physical specimens and became generic graduate students, indistinguishable from all-in-black, cigarette-smoking studiers of literary theory and bearded-and-geeky future scientists. It’s all we do, they wailed, and it’s hard.
What’s hard?
The journal articles he makes us read (they said, directing accusing fingers at my colleague) are dense and boring. We’re getting good information, but it can be painful. And, they said, we have to learn to write like that.
No, I said, you don’t.
