We can see what not to do by looking to academic writing. It was famously mocked by Vladimir Nabokov in 1962 in Pale Fire. I am not sure that the situation has improved.
A law professor wrote an article about how a victim is allowed to sue when his rights have been violated by the government. He begins:
The system of government accountability has changed dramatically in the years since Marbury v. Madison promised remedies for government violations of individual rights. For one thing, modern remedial law focuses on prospective, declaratory-style litigation, in which the federal courts proclaim the law and government agencies carry those interpretations into effect. That preference for declaratory adjudication has led to a distrust of retrospective enforcement of law through tort-based suits for damages. Comments by Chief Justice Roberts, expressing a clear preference for prospectivity, find a reflection in Egbert v. Boule and the various immunity doctrines that the Court has erected to shield the government and its officers from tort-based liability in damages.
Not exactly clear. To establish clarity, we want our subjects to be actors, and our verbs to be actions. Here, subjects are changing from sentence to sentence with no clear link established between them – we are moving from one conceptual noun to another. The paragraph references many ideas: the remedial system; the court’s preferences; the two types of litigation – declarative v torts based; and Supreme Court decisions. But what is the link between these different concepts? And relatedly, what is the story?
Beginning the Rewriting Process: Who Are the Actors and What Are Their Actions?
This is all about how the federal courts allow victims to sue when the government violates their rights. According to this professor, the victim can sue in one of two ways – and the courts currently like one way and dislike the other. But their preferences have evolved.
Sentence by sentence, let’s consider who the grammatical subjects are, and see if they correlate to the real actors.
| Sentence | Grammatical Subject | Real Actor |
| 1 | System of governmental accountability | Courts |
| 2 | Modern remedial law | Courts |
| 3 | Preference for declaratory adjudication | Courts |
| 4 | Comments by Chief Justice Roberts expressing a clear preference for prospectivity, | Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court, immunity doctrines |
So, we will largely use the federal courts as a continuous actor but include additional actors at the end. To set this up, using the original text, we will consider who is doing what. In this way, we will begin to eliminate unclear concepts.
| Sentence | Real Actor | Real Action |
| 1 | Courts | Changed the system for how they hold governments accountable |
| 2 | Courts | Focus on prospective, declaratory litigation/proclaim the law |
| 3 | Courts | Distrust retrospective torts based litigation. |
| 4 | Chief Justice Roberts | Said that he prefers prospective suits. |
| Robert’s preference | Showed up in Supreme Court rulings, which rulings created an immunity doctrine in Egbert v Boule and other cases | |
| Immunity doctrines | Shields the government and its officers from being sued by victims in tort-based claims. |
Note that in sentence 4, we have two additional real actors. Maybe we can solve that problem by writing additional sentences and breaking the text up into different paragraphs.
As a possibility then, we can write this:
Since Marbury v Madison, courts have dramatically changed how victims can sue when the victims state that their rights have been violated by the government. Today, these courts prefer that the victims use prospective, declaratory litigation, where the courts proclaim what the law is, and these proclamations are implemented by governmental agencies. Because of this preference, they now distrust retrospective, tort-based litigation for damages.
Chief Justice Roberts has clearly said that he prefers prospective suits. This preference was enshrined by the Supreme Court in Egbert v. Boule and other rulings. These rulings have created an immunity doctrine, under which, the government and its officers are shielded when plaintiffs sue them using tort-based claims for damages.
A bit better, no? The progression of ideas is clearer – what the courts want → what Roberts and the Supreme Court said → how their immunity doctrine protects the government based on how the victims sue.
And even though we added three sentences and an additional paragraph, the word count has increased only slightly. In the original version, it was 110. In the revised version, it is 116. Slightly more words, but much more clarity.
Thoughts on Academic Writing
If we wanted to, we could eliminate even more jargon. But, as we will discuss in later articles, the author might be using his jargon to establish credibility with his audience – perhaps an audience of scholars. They might implicitly agree to use jargon and phraseology.
But that is theatre: from this vantage point, the academic readers and writer implicitly agree to feign dealing with monumentally complex concepts. Often, they are not.
My mission is not to immerse you in confusing jargon so that you seduce the easily fooled and alienate the genuinely curious. My job will be to help you say things in a linear but stylish way so that the reader is captivated by both your ideas and prose.
Find this information useful? Work with me so that we can improve the clarity and style of your writing and speaking so that you communicate with clarity and command.
