论良好学术写作能力的培养.doc

论良好学术写作能力的培养
译者：xzhun
过去安德鲁·苏利文（Andrew Sullivan）曾在其新建的、独立的新闻网站 Daily Dish上，主持了一个有趣的话题：为什么学术著作常常不堪卒读。和某些人一样，让自己的学术写作更清晰易懂，并且试图把那种价值观灌输给学生，因此我饶有兴趣地参加了话题。

对于初学者来讲，我认为问题不在于没有人鼓励未来学者把文章写好。例如，就我自己而言，我有幸在本科生时就在斯坦福大学和乔治·亚历克斯一起搞研究，在研究生阶段，在伯克利大学和肯尼斯·沃尔兹一起搞研究，两位都一再强调培养良好写作能力的重要性。沃尔兹对研究生的论文或学位论文修改不多，但他一旦发现我的写作中有佶屈聱牙、冗长乏味、条理不清或明显的逻辑混乱，他都会明确地给我指出来。他还公开谈到写作在研究生课程中的重要性，鼓励学生阅读写作方面的书籍，如福勒《现代英语用法》，他对像象鼻虫那样大量出现于学术著作的时髦新词汇嗤之以鼻。

我认为这个问题也不在于刊物或大学出版社的编辑水平差。我在十多个学术期刊发表过论文，在一家著名的大学出版社和两家不同的商业出版商出版过书，也在许多媒体上发表过文章。我打过交道的编辑或文字编辑几乎都热心助人，一些人还相当优秀。事实上，在我的记忆中，在近三十年里，我的稿子只有一次真正被一位编辑毙掉（实际上是一位实习生干的），还好杂志在文章发表前给我挽回了损失

那么，为什么学术写作如此拙劣？

学术写作有时很困难的原因之一是因为正在研究的课题很复杂，难度较大，很难用普通的语言解释。我对哲学家努力解决有关道德、时间、认识论这一类问题抱有更多的同情，因为这类问题天生就很棘手，用些玄虚的措辞极易失去读者。但那也不是无法避免的。一些哲学家也尽力用十分浅显的笔调著述非常深奥的、重要的问题。但读者仍然要专注思考，才能理解人家在说些什么，但那种难度倒不是作者有意为之。

第二个原因是许多学者不能理解论证的逻辑和演示的逻辑之间的差异。具体来讲，学者细述解决某个特定问题的过程并不一定就是向读者解释这个答案的最好的方式。但一些文章和稿件常常有点像研究说明：“首先我们先做文献综述，然后我们得到了以下的假设，然后我们收集这些数据或研究这些案例，再然后我们对这些资料加以分析，并得到了如下结果，第二天我们进行鲁棒性检验，这就是我们下一步要做的。”

问题是这种叙事方式很少是能让人信服你观点的最好方式。一旦你知道你的论点是什么，接下来真正有效地写作方式就是坐下来，努力思考如何以最好的方式向读者呈现那个观点。这个过程中最重要的是确定论点的整体结构——首先需要研究的观点是什么，然后自然地或逻辑地沿着这些观点展开论证，等等。一篇理想的社科论文应该内含严密逻辑或结构意识，使读者尽可能毫不费力地追踪作者的论点和支持证据。

获得这一能力需要不断地换位思考。你必须走出你自己对所研究问题的理解，问自己，你的话怎样影响那些不了解你思想的人、甚至是反对你的人的思路。事实上，有说服力的写作不仅仅是说服别人转变原有观点，一个真正精心设计论证过程和充分论据支持的观点将打消怀疑论者固有的信念。

为什么会这样呢？因为学术写作能力差使得你的文章既缺乏观赏性也缺乏说服力。学者应该努力写清楚，原因很明显，清晰地表达让许多人更快地了解你的想法。可以这样来考虑：如果我额外花20个小时编辑、修改、修饰一篇研究成果，而且如果那额外的努力使500人每人花了不到一个半小时就搞清楚我说的话，那么，我就为人类净节省了230个小时的工作。

由此我们可以得出一些人学术写作水平低下的真实原因。第一个问题是，许多学者（尤其是年轻人）倾向于故作深沉。如果他们写些冗长的句子，并抛出大量的专业术语，他们以为读者将对他们的博学作倾倒科，更可能不加批评地接受他们的观点。此外，专业学者也用行话来提醒普通人：俺们是学术圈子里的人。并且年轻学者常常担心，如果他们不像一个专业学者那样装逼，那么读者不会相信他们所言——无论他们的论点和证据有多可靠。

第二个问题是害怕出错。如果你的议论是清晰的，你的观点很容易推断出来，那么读者可以搞明白你在说什么，并要求你能作出具体解释。如果你正在做预测（或者，你提出的理论含有对将来的推断），如果你的预测表述太明确结果却失败了，那么你会被人看衰。如果你的论点有明显的可检验的结论，那么其他人会进行检验，看看你的观点是否站得住脚。

但是，如果你的议论枯燥无味、含混晦涩，不能从各个方面清晰地表达自己的观点，那么读者可能无法弄清你的真实意图，而你总可以借口遭人误解而回避批评。（当然，有时批评者故意歪批某个学术观点，但那是另一回事）。于是低劣的写作成为学术装逼的一种形式，以保护作者躲避批评。

在同学术蒙昧主义进行无何止的斗争中，我常常告诫学生多读读斯特伦克和怀特经典之作《文体指要》，留意他们对简洁的强调。我们大多数人作文往往过多堆砌（尤其是使用了太多的副词），而文句愈简洁则愈佳。或者，正如斯特伦克和怀特所言：

“铿然有力之文必简洁。一句之中无冗词，一段之中无赘句，犹如丹青无冗枝，机器无废件。此说不求作者下笔句句精短，摒弃细节，概而述之；但求字字有着落耳。”

我也是安东尼·韦斯顿《论证是一门学问》一书的粉丝，这是一本介绍如何让你的观点更有说服力的相当不错的入门级读物。

再补充一点，我鼓励学生先模仿他们所欣赏的作者。如果你喜欢某些学者的书，多读几遍，从中捕捉是什么使得他们对语言的运用如此有效。我就是用这种方法找到了像华尔兹，托马斯·谢林，詹姆斯·斯科特，约翰·穆勒和迪尔德丽·麦克洛斯基等作者的灵感。你可以不赞成某些作者的观点，但你要尊重他们的写作能力：查尔斯·克劳特哈默的想法经常令我沮丧，但毫无疑问，他是一个给人留下深刻印象的语言大师。

最后，总结一下一个学者努力的方向。如果目标只是狭隘的职业上的成功——获得终身职位，拿着体面的薪水，等等——那么，拙劣的写作水平不会构成你成功的巨大障碍，甚至可能赋予你一定的优势。但是，如果我们的目标是产生影响力——无论是在你的学科范围还是在更广阔的世界——那么，清晰而有效的写作是不可缺少的。问题其实很简单：你是否愿意与他人沟通？

Over at the new, independent Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has been hosting an interesting thread on why academic writing is frequently abysmal. As someone who tries hard to make even my academic writing clear and accessible and who tries to instill that value in my students, I've followed the thread with interest.

For starters, I don't think the problem is that no one encourages future academics to write well. In my own case, for example, I was fortunate to study with Alex George at Stanford as an undergrad and with Kenneth Waltz at Berkeley during graduate school, and both repeatedly stressed the importance of writing well. Waltz didn't do a lot of line-editing of grad student papers or dissertations, but he certainly let me know when he thought my writing was obscure, verbose, disorganized, or just plain confused. He also spoke openly about the importance of writing in his graduate courses, encouraged students to read books such as Fowler's Modern English Usage, and was scornful of the trendy neologisms that infest academic writing like so many weevils.

I also don't think the problem is due to poor editing at journals or university presses. I've published in over a dozen academic journals, with a prominent university press, and with two different commercial publishers, as well in a number of journals of opinion. Almost all of the editors or copy-editors with whom I've worked were helpful and attentive, and some were superlative. Indeed, I can think of only one case in nearly thirty years where a manuscript of mine was truly butchered by an editor (it was actually done by an intern) and fortunately the magazine let me repair the damage before the article appeared.

So why is academic writing so bad?

One reason academic writing is sometimes difficult is because the subjects being addressed are complicated and difficult and hard to explain with ordinary language. I have more than a little sympathy for philosophers grappling with deep questions about morality, time, epistemology, and the like, as these subjects are inherently slippery and it is easy to lose the reader in a fog of words. But it isn't inevitable even there. Some philosophers manage to write about very deep and weighty matters in a prose that is crystal clear. You still have to pay attention and think hard to understand what is being said, but not because the author is making it more difficult than it needs to be.

A second reason is the failure of many scholars to appreciate the difference between the logic of discovery and the logic of presentation. Specifically, the process by which a scholar figures out the answer to a particular question is rarely if ever the best way to explain that answer to a reader. But all too often articles and manuscripts read a bit like a research narrative: "First we read the literature, then we derived the following hypotheses, then we collected this data or researched these cases, then we analyzed them and got these results, and the next day we performed our robustness checks, and here's what we're going to do next."

The problem is that this narrative form is rarely the best way to make a convincing case. Once you know what your argument is, really effective writing involves sitting down and thinking hard about the best way to present that argument to the reader. The most important part of that process is figuring out the overall structure of the argument -- what points need to be developed first, and then what follows naturally or logically from them, and so on. An ideal piece of social science writing should have a built-in sense of logical or structural inevitability so that the reader moves along the argument and supporting evidence as effortlessly as possible.

Achieving this quality requires empathy. You have to be able to step outside your own understanding of the problem at hand and ask how your words are going to affect the thinking of someone who doesn't already know what you know and may even be inclined to disagree with you at first. Indeed, persuasive writing doesn't just convince the already-converted, a really well-crafted and well-supported argument will overcome a skeptic's initial resistance.

Why does this matter? Because the poor quality of academic writing is both aesthetically offensive and highly inefficient. Academics should strive to write clearly for the obvious reason that it will allow many others to learn more quickly. Think of it this way: If I spend 20 extra hours editing, re-writing, and polishing a piece of research, and if that extra effort enables 500 people to spend a half-hour less apiece figuring out what I am saying, then I have saved humankind a net 230 hours of effort.

Which leads me to the real reasons why academic writing is often bad. The first problem is that many academics (and especially younger ones) tend to confuse incomprehensibility with profundity. If they write long and ponderous sentences and throw in lots of jargon, they assume that readers will be dazzled by their erudition and more likely to accept whatever it is they are saying uncritically. Moreover, jargon is a way for professional academics to remind ordinary people that they are part of a guild with specialized knowledge that outsiders lack, and younger scholars often fear that if they don't sound like a professional scholar, then readers won't believe what they are saying no matter how solid their arguments and evidence are.

The second problem is the fear of being wrong. If your prose is clear and your arguments are easy to follow, then readers can figure out what you are saying and they can hold you to account. If you are making forecasts (or if the theory you are advancing has implications for the future), then you will look bad if your predictions are clearly stated and then fail. If your argument has obvious testable implications, others can run the tests and see how well your claims stand up.

But if your prose is muddy and obscure or your arguments are hedged in every conceivable direction, then readers may not be able to figure out what you're really saying and you can always dodge criticism by claiming to have been misunderstood. (Of course, sometimes critics do deliberately misrepresent a scholarly argument, but that's another matter). Bad writing thus becomes a form of academic camouflage designed to shield the author from criticism.

In the endless war against academic obscurantism, I tell my own students to read Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style and to heed their emphasis on concision. Most of us tend to overwrite (especially by using too many adverbs), and shorter is almost always better. Or as Strunk and White put it:

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

I'm also a fan of Anthony Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments, a very smart primer on the different forms of persuasive argument and the ways to make written arguments more convincing.

Finally, I encourage students to emulate writers they admire. If there are scholars whose books you enjoyed, read them several times and try to capture what it is that makes their use of language so effective. I've found inspiration in writers like Waltz, Thomas Schelling, James Scott, John Mueller, and Deirdre McCloskey. And you don't have to agree with someone to respect their ability to write: Charles Krauthammer's ideas usually appall me, but there's no question that he is an effective prose stylist.

In the end, it comes down to what a scholar is trying to achieve. If the goal is just narrow professional success -- getting tenure, earning a decent salary, etc. -- then bad writing isn't a huge handicap and may even confer some advantages. But if the goal is to have impact -- both within one's discipline and in the wider world -- then there's no substitute for clear and effective writing. The question is really pretty simple: do you want to communicate with others or not?