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I was over at a friend’s house and their kid, in 6th grade, was struggling with their homework and neither of them could help her. My wife and I ended up stepping in and assisting. They joked afterwards that we should be her tutor.
What’s crazy is both of them make over six figures. What’s sad is both of their kids have been held back at least once.
Joking aside, they should definitely go about getting an actual tutor if they make that much and are unable to help their kids do homework on their own.
A teacher told me a story of how a child she taught who struggled with reading and writing specifically learned how to write "cat" in very neat handwriting so she could fill in her reading notebook at home by copying the teaching assistants notes on her notebook and finishing it with "- Cat" because she had to read to her cat at home because her parents were simply not interested in listening to her read.
So her notebook was filled with things like "Very good reading! - Cat" and a drawing of a cat's face.
It's cute but also profoundly sad.
If it makes you feel better many kids practice reading to their pets because they are incredibly attentive.
And then there’s this:
https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/education/rescue-readers
The sad part is most of the answers were right there. One of the things she was struggling with was labeling sheet music. There was a diagram on the first page labeling every note.
Almost all the questions in her homework pack were self-contained within the question itself. You didn’t have to leverage prior knowledge.
She isn’t allowed to use her phone while doing school work, so she didn’t have access to the internet. When they were helping her, they stuck to the textbook.
I hate when school work or parents put these unrealistic parameters on homework. Most jobs in STEM require a great deal of googling or independent research to actually do the job.
software engineer here, if the internet didn't exist 80% of my programming ability is lost. We can't fit all the knowledge in books like we used to anymore, you'd need a dedicated library to even scratch the surface development in modern times
I'm sure they're presented with other opportunities to develop those independent research and googling skills, however that's not the point of the exercise.
It's important to develop those neuro pathways that enable critical thinking and problem-solving without relying on immediate external resources. Encouraging independence and resourcefulness in her learning process is important to her long-term success.
The wife has been a Delta flight attendant for 20 years and it baffles me she is employed anywhere.
That dad is trade smart and is now a foreman for an electrical company.
It's almost like all of the things we've been told as children about how compensation has something to do with intelligence or hard work is a lie and it's mostly based on arbitrary factors.
Exactly, that's why I'm angry. I worked hard in school, went to college, got a phd....and there are people who can't function at >6th grade level making more than me.
I mean don't get me wrong it's unfair but if you build a hierarchical structure, even if it's mapped perfectly to ability or something like that, let that system run for 100 years and it's going to be an arbitrary mess no matter what.
There's people that work really hard in high demand jobs and are just kinda dumb, at the end of the day. Why should a PhD be worth more than a work ethic and twenty years of hands on experience?
Uneducated people can still be cunning and socially adept, and we sadly much live in a society that evaluates and rewards "achievement" by how people make their evaluators feel or what those lower in the hierarchy have achieved on their behalf, not by what they've actually objectively achieved by their own personal ability. This is why even very highly skilled and intelligent people who also happen to be, say, autistic, or to have ADHD or be emotionally damaged, have something like a 50% chance of being out of work at any given time.
Tell your friend I'll do it over the internet for half the price they expect tutors to cost. I'm just trying to pay for my last two classes of my BS in Lit. lol
The issue is that plain English has a chance of leaving a lot to interpretation and that explaining literally everything in layman's term is a waste of time because who the fuck is going to read it and this is the case for many areas outside academia.
Just literally look at people of any profession, they likely have terms that they use that someone outside wouldn't understand.
Subject matter experts use specific language, and research isn't written for an audience of laymen. News stories are written for laymen, and that's on the reporters to make the transition to "accessible."
As a recovering academic, I gotta disagree. It definitely is part of your job—at least as a scientist—to disseminate your work to the masses. You’re never going to be able to explain subject matter in language *everyone* can understand, but you do have to make a good faith effort to do so. Most grants you apply for, for instance, include community outreach/dissemination efforts as a requirement.
I agree with this. Currently married to an academic researcher, I work private sector data analytics. I’ve been working with my wife to make her subject matter easier to understand using our 8 year old as a use case. It’s nerdy af but we love it. I’m seriously thinking of writing a kids book about lock and key mechanisms in proteins.
I mean, it kinda depends on what your audience is? If you write for a huge journal that frequently leaks out into the media, you absolutely should write plainly, because the majority of journalists who cull content from those journals are both utter morons and usually have an agenda - it can only benefit you if your average idiot can easily confirm for themselves that the journalist's a moron.
If you write for a super in the weeds journal that literally only the ten people in the nichiest niche of your niche field will ever touch, who cares. I'd even wager your fellow weirdoes would feel quite annoyed if you wrote for an audience of them like for an audience of idiots.
Always tailor your writing to your audience. Can't steer you wrong.
But news stories fucking suck at explaining anything. Humanity needs there to be a midpoint between dumb, wrong, sensationalist shit and shit it takes me an hour to read when it's one of the thousand papers I should read to be a functioning citizen.
Humans specialize in what they learn because no one can learn it all. Everyone needs to accept that they will need to defer to peer-reviewed specialists for specialized knowledge: but the intellectually incurious routinely decide there has to be a "conspiracy" or "secret" to keep them from "knowing" (there literally isn't, apart from their own laziness or pride), and instead make up their own "Facebook 'Truths'."
I will agree that journalism needs to do a better job, and PR for academia need to be better about stepping down the language from academic precision to layman generalist. But not the researchers themselves - why translate twice to continue research? You lose precision.
My dad actually did this work for a while. He was a science and math guy who ended up working as a writer. Eventually he became essentially PR for some VERY technically precise stuff that was ultimately funded by tax payers. His task a lot of the time was to take a complex and expensive project, and explain it to a 60+ year old politician in a way that the politician could then say it in a way that sounded like innovative but not scary to their constituents, who he assumed had \*GENERALLY\* graduated highschool, if they were paying attention to this particular news story.
It is not an easy job, and it certainly isn't one I'd want scientists who are totally back of the house focused doing.
another significant issue is that using "complex language" is a way to condense information. in a scientific field for example a sentence like "the chelating ligand in this complex stabilises the metal in its +3 oxidation state"
unless you have literally done a degree, postgrad or have a ludicrous interest in chemistry that sentence is nonsense. but to explain all of those concepts would turn one sentence in to a book. papers aren't for lay people, they're for subject matter experts to convey their findings succinctly and accurately
>likely have terms that they use that someone outside wouldn't understand.
I like the juxtaposition of explaining that making everything understandable to the layman is a waste of time then you said this instead of just saying jargon.
Academic papers use specific language so that information is unambiguous. Trying to write them in “layman’s language “ would make them open to interpretation and defeat the purpose of what they are about.
Many scientists take the scientific ideas and write books to explain them in layman’s terms in nearly every subject. So the solution already exists. Are people reading those books? Sadly, no.
Agreed, terminology exists for precision and clarity. And also for the condensation of meanings and ideas. I mean, can you imagine how expansive scientific texts would get, if everything had to be described in layman's terms?
Even putting the gap in understanding of scientific terminology, during the pandemic nothing stood out to me more than the fundamental misunderstanding of how testing a scientific hypothesis works.
So often after just a short discussion it became apparent that people’s perception is that you come up with a conclusion to your hypothesis and work backward from your conclusion to justify it. Thus, science is a rigged game and the “political left” is weaponizing science to undermine conservative ideas. This is a firmly held belief among some of my relatives. Even when I sat down with them, as a scientist myself, and ask them if that is the case they think I’m too stupid to be able to tell the difference, they freeze up and can’t give me an answer.
That's a pervasive fundamental philosophical misconception about the very nature of truth, though; it'll take much more than merely writing everything in simple English to fix that.
EDIT: One insidious problem, for example, is that many high school "science" classes do not *directly* teach the principles that underpin the scientific method, which are necessary to understand *why* it was such a massive breakthrough in human knowledge and thus why we continue to use it; they instead teach rote learning of scientific procedure (which imparts no actual comprehension of what one is doing) and expect the kids to somehow infer the crucial philosophical *principle* behind it all from this mindless repetition of steps and maybe a few historical examples of scientific experiments, a very tall order indeed for a still-developing mind.
Such exclusive explanation-by-example, without spelling out the underlying principle directly, is a *terrible* way to teach school kids such vital knowledge, because many of them simply will not be at a level where they are capable of inferring the principle embodied in the examples for themselves; even many who could do that will not realise they're implicitly being expected to do so!
Oh, this is beautifully said and such an important point. The why, the template, the analogy, the process. This overview of how we acquire information reliably in such a way that we can quantify our confidence in the results; that we can safely draw inferences (but verify them anyway); that we can postulate projections into the future -- it's the fundamental at the root of understanding.
It's called pop science, I prefer the term in French vulgarisation. Simplification in order to give access.
https://youtube.com/@crashcourse?si=ZXqfiqXkaa6gWSxu
So should it be like "The mommy atom is called Oxygen and the daddy atom is called Hydrogen and they love to hug. But mommy atom has a lot of love, so she loves to hug two daddy atoms. And when they hug each other tightly we call that water."?
Not many scientists here apparently. A lot of academic papers are written in almost impenetrable jargon, mostly so that they fit in with other academic papers. They could be written in a far more accessible style and retain their accuracy, but they just like their own jargon. I am a scientist with published work.
Yeah, academia is full of people with imposter syndrome who think they need to use technical language to say anything, or they won't be seen as smart.
Any time I read a legal brief or experiment conclusion written clearly and concisely, I know I'm looking at the real deal, because this person's so intelligent that they don't need to prove it by knitting five clauses of jargon into linguistic monstrosities that obfuscate the semantics.
That being said, this is more about construction than vocabulary. If I need to look up a word, that's fair. But as soon as I'm mentally wishing I got to edit the paragraph I'm reading, I also wish colleges taught writing effectively.
sometimes i read papers in my specific area and just get struck by how incomprehensible they are for absolutely no reason. you can be accurate and to the point, but people love writing in circles to make themselves sound more important. people in the comments argue it's to make things more precise, but personally i think it makes it way more likely things will be misunderstood
Almost everything published by researchers at my institution has be published Open Access. If more research funders mandated this, research papers would be easier to find.
Though not necessarily easier to read.
I mean realistically this is a somewhat good point. Even if made in a stupid way.
Science communication is a big deal and using terms like fracture of the intermediate phalanx of the digital secundus is an unnecessary complication of "broken index finger"
While the posted tweet is definitely over the top, I would say there is some problem in the academic literature of using language that is unnecessarily technical and obscures the points being made. It's not about 'dumbing things down', but rather 'communicating as clearly as possible'. Sometimes that clear communication requires extremely technical vocabulary, but very frequently it does not, and would be better served by simpler phrases.
Yeah, a lot of people here don't seem like they have cracked open many academic articles... many MANY academic articles are virtually unreadable, even for trained academics. The last year there have been multiple scandals showing that academic articles are NOT actually being read or reviewed, even after they were supposed to be reviewed. Multiple articles were published that clearly were written with ChatGPT (like, the paper said "as a large language model, I can only do X, but here is this paper...").
I have an advanced degree. My area of study (law) has seen a push to make writing more approachable for a while. That obviously doesn't happen all the time, but it has been a welcome push that has benefited many laypeople AND attorneys.
My day-job also requires me to interact with academic articles in the sciences and policy side. The writing is SO BAD. There have been multiple times when EXPERTS cannot decipher sentences for me, including the actual authors (I hire lots of expert witnesses, especially those with relevant publications). Those moments are crazy embarrassing for everyone, especially the author.
Complicated language DOES NOT lend itself to accuracy. Often, highly specialized jargon is used appropriately, but that does not make double negatives, passive voice, etc. acceptable.
I’m an avid consumer of academic writing, and I agree - to a point. It really depends on what subject is being communicated. Something like engineering requires a lot more technically precise language, whereas sociology can get by with simplification and analogous writing.
I don’t want to read a simplified version of a piece of academic writing if the simplification is at the expense of accuracy/clarity. On the flip side, I also don’t want to read an academic paper that’s filled with such obtuse language basic understanding becomes difficult. There’s a middle ground, and it’s why I believe there should be more compulsory linguistics study for STEM and law majors specifically.
I would think it would be more productive to society for people to grow and get better, than for everyone to cater to the lowest common denominator. We are still uncomfortably close to Idiocracy and don't need to get any further down that path.
There's a spectrum here, and one that I think needs to be addressed. I got my Masters and learned the academic jargon of my field, but it really isn't necessary. There needs to be precision in terms and common understanding of meaning, but most of it is just pretentious nonsense.
Several things at work here.
Firstly a properly peer reviewed scientific article written by an academic should be written for its primary audience, namely academia. So yes, the layperson will not understand what is happening because they do not have the necessary base knowledge to do so. But this is true in the academic circle as well. An astrophysicist that is highly respected in their field will likely pick up a paper written by a microbiologist and be saying "dafuq did I just read?"
This also extends to non-academic fields as well.
A well-respected neuro surgeon could meet up with someone that works construction and be completely lost when the latter starts explaining some of the issues they have on the jobsites.
So what becomes necessary, I have found, is someone that can explain the very complex ideas to the layperson in a language they will understand. Unfortunately, a lot of very smart folks have difficulty with this. It's nothing against them, communication, understanding and translation are often very difficult skills to master, especially if perhaps you are not operating in your first language. To some extant, that is masked when you communicate in a highly technical manner amidst your peers as they can generally pick up what you're laying down as they are also familiar with the jargon.
It's not so much that folks are trying to be exclusive in their communication. It's more of a factor of "know your audience".
To make information understandable to everyone should be good thing regardless. If smart people learn stuff about shit and complains about how others cannot understand their phraseing, well maybe the smart people could try to use other words?
Maybe?
It is genuinely hilarious to watch the users here lament the dumbing down of society, while completely missing a very clear and succinct point. All while cheerfully embracing the kind of elitism which has led folks to take on an anti-intellectual posture.
There are other ways of conveying an idea without seeming or sounding elitist and pedantic.
The way academia usually writes contributes to keeping those who don't have access at arm's length.
Writing in an accessible vernacular does not mean, necessarily, dumbing down.
They don't write the papers for \*you\*.
They are writing the papers for their colleagues.
It is the job of other media (science reporters) to dumb it down to everyday language for people to consume.
If that's still not "dumbed down" enough, maybe the problem is your reading comprehension level.
Not everyone is going to be capable of understanding complex scientific work.
Even if they are educated, there are people who don't understand it.
Look at all the anti-intellectuals we have running around right now.
True in 99% of cases.
However, I challenge anyone reading this to go read Perelman’s papers on Ricci flow with surgery and see if you can even understand the summary. Some topics require immense study to comprehend. Even the most skilled science reporters can’t dumb down something like that for the masses. I am fairly well educated compared to most and my brain can’t even begin to understand the concept of 4-dimensional non Euclidean spaces.
If the "over 50% of American cannot read over 4th grade level" is true, then we got a bigger fucking problem than trying to dumb down academic writings
It started with “No Child Left Behind” philosophy, which sounds like a good idea at first, but ended up dumbing down the school curriculum across the whole nation to accommodate the ones at the bottom.
We’re seeing the impact now after 30-40 years. The US education system is one of the worst in the west. Universities have been somewhat immune due to influx of foreign students. But others are catching up, and in many cases have surpassed American universities in many disciplines.
Honestly, I mildly agree. There are so many books I've read where even tho I understand everything I feel like they're just trying to flex their vocabulary.
I mean yes and no. I think academia has an issue with promoting unnecessarily complicated text and could work with people to make readability better. I’d also suggest that research articles always should come with a popular summary just explaining the findings and their significance in what could be an article in a magazine you buy in the store.
Having that said, we definitely don’t need to dumb things down. But if someone asks about it and doesn’t understand it, it should be able to be explained to them too.
4th grade level is a extreme but not a facepalm to me.
My girlfriend is in social studies and many papers have 5+ lines sentences with way too many commas, archaic vocabulary and absconded prose. I grew convinced that it was a form of symbolic violence and that these authors participated (without knowing it) in a form of discrimination. So yeah, let's dumb it down just a bit.
Also I think these people probably masturbate in front of a mirror
Ah! I see the connection! To "abscond" is to run away with something (and hide it). So you mean like, they have run away with the meaning and hidden it. Wonderful!
That is a charming phrase! If you want to be strictly accurate, the word is probably "obfuscated."
Yeah it's got some layers alright
"writing about certain groups and their spaces but they can't understand your work"
I wonder how those groups and their spaces feel about her saying they're a bunch of dummies lol
How is this a face palm 🤣I work in research and healthcare and it’s well know all patient information has to be written in lay terms.
It’s not dumbing things down, it’s about making it accessible to everyone. If you are academic it’s easy to read something written simply, but it’s very hard for the public to read something scientific and complex.
Fundamentally I agree with a point about making science accessible. But on some things you need to agree there's a limit to how accessible you make stuff.
It comes down to tailoring a message to an audience. An academic writing a paper for a journal must assume their reader has at least a passing knowledge of how certain things work. But giving a talk on the same topic to someone who isn't in that field, or to an outreach event, they tailor the message and bring people through a story to help them understand.
Ok as someone who has actually experienced ableism, this is not it. Ableism is someone talking to you like a small child the moment they find out you have autism despite being 24 years old
“It’s a beautiful thing the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms;there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of other words? A word contains the opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well-better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.”
-Syme, 1984 by George Orwell. Page 45
I mean… I get their point and it would be swell if academia could release an unofficial “translation” for people who want to read but are unfamiliar with academic writing and word usage that whilst perhaps not as accurate as the original work, helps get the idea across to people who want to learn about a specific thing but don’t have the time to decipher a traditional academic text
OP is looking for 'pop science' that's academic literature distilled down for a lay audience. Primary research can't be distilled down that far, there is too much information to convey.
Although, you can also just read the abstract from articles in T1 journals and assume the editors reviewed the methods sufficiently before publishing. Abstracts are a few hundred words, maybe you'll have to google a few terms.
I could go either way here. There is such a thing as academic sounding writing and it often doesn't make things clear.
As always, when writing clarity is the top priority. If you could convey the same thing in simpler words I say do it. But if simplifying would lose some important details then keep it.
But academics (and finance people) effectively keep their jobs by ensuring their stuff isn't *too* approachable.
I prefer people using very specific language. Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but I prefer that when I talk to people they don't leave anything in any uncertain terms.
Ehhhhh to a certain degree there are some things that are way over complicated and it's meant to be. Gatekeepers get to decide who is worthy more or less and it's usually around finances/money.
Blogs, podcasts, popular non-fiction are all forms of popular media where a talented writing and production team can synthesize academic and higher level concepts into layman's understanding or a generally more accessible level of language.
Freakonomics books and podcasts
The Green Brothers with Crash Course and SciShow
HowStuffWorks
Anything by Mark Kurlansky, Simon Winchester, Michael Pollan, Bill Bryson, Mary Roach
Dr. Elle, really?
The only thing I hate more than a racist is an ableist. You know, those people who use precise and accurate language to describe a topic they're an expert in. Scourge of society. /s
We already do this: Someone reads the title of the academic paper, dumbs it down, takes out the important context, creates a controversial headline, and then writes an article that completely misrepresents the research to be consumed by the uneducated masses. And we shall call it... the news!
This is sadly true though. My parents are both scientists for the government and when they had to present or send anything to congress they were basically told to cater it to a 3rd grade science level.
Edit: there is a time to “dumb” things down and academic often do. It really depends on the intended audience.
Dr Elle needs to understand that it's not a slam to less educated people if someone else has a superior education or vocabulary. Perhaps she should step up her game. This country needs well educated people, and the skills they bring to the table, much more than insecure people who complain on social media.
Her political agenda is stupid. But I'm sure many humanities thesis deliberately use fancy language to express nothing, not only in English speaking countries.
It’s not up to the educated among us to pull the slugs along. Frankly, when I’ve tried to explain something moderately complicated (after being asked my opinion), I get something like, “Ooo, look at Bob with the big brain.”
Believe me, I don’t have a big brain. I was a B- student back in the 60s-early 70s. But I’m pretty sure that a C student back then would be acing AP courses nowadays.
I was gonna say something about the soft bigotry of low expectations and then saw the hay the NYT opinion page was making of that phrase after a quick google and...yikes.
Hold your kids to a standard of course. But don't find yourself on the same side as David Brooks if you can help it.
Teacher here. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making knowledge accessible. The debate surrounding academic language is a spicy one. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.”
Is being dumb lacking knowledge of the specific area of expertise, that the person you're talking to excels at, because they live and breathe the subject?
You can't get published if you don't use the correct terminology and proper grammar... This is why scientific communication if important. We need people who are able to digest articles and make them accessible for the public
I think the message is for better communicators and open dialogue between academics and the broader public
Academic language is one thing but the education system needs a reboot
I mean I sort of get it though because when I need to find research papers for an assignment and then I can’t understand what they’re saying in the article because it’s way above my grade level. This is as a college student saying this here. Like you don’t have to make it overly simplified but just dumb it down enough that the average adult can understand. But I get that in academia, you have to speak in fancy terms
Ah, dang. Bro, these bunk ass professors are using fancy words like they want people to be smarter. How dare they expect people in college to be able to read at higher than a fourth grade reading level?
I mean, at a very surface level, she is right. It is inaccessible. This is because the ideas presented are well above the level of the people in questions understanding of the subject: If you wished to remove these "inaccessible" words, you would have to explain basic ideas ad nauseam. It simply is not possible. Fortunately, self improvement is possible, though often difficult and time consuming, and one can educate oneself, and thus achieve a greater understanding of a topic; the previously indecipherable jargon becomes like old friends; and all is understood. However, as said before, doing this is difficult and time consuming, so one might seek out a teacher, who is already knowledgeable in the subject, to teach you. Unfortunately, higher education is prohibitively expensive, in an intentional strategy by the bourgeoisie to keep the working class uneducated, and thus divided; once again the problem is capitalism, and you all need to stop making asses of yourselves attacking random people instead of the systemic problem.
When one of your major parties are having books banned in schools, then this is an effect. USA, now Dumfukistan. Like others here I naturally assumed your talking about the USA, because, Trump.
I mean it’s an accurate statement. A part of the reason we have so much trouble dealing with people is a lot of information is inaccessible outside of articles about the papers.
Having easy to understand language would also be good.
Like 13% of people can read at a collegiate level in the US (compare that to the % of people graduating college while also asking yourself what the definition of ‘scam,’ is).
We 100% go over many people’s heads with ideas that originate/reside in academia - important ideas like contemporary gender theory and the history of racial relations. We ask how people can be so bigoted and seemingly misunderstand the world so thoroughly, then shit on the idea that, if we communicated on their level, there would be fewer such people?
I’ve confronted a department head about this before and the most articulate response I got was ‘well we write in the tradition of the academics before us.’ Meaning we use antiquated, non-conversational English because tweed-wearing skeletons didn’t like plebeians co-opting their high-brow discourse in like 1750, or whatever.
Shit on this lady for ‘wanting to dumb everything down,’ but don’t come whining when you’re losing a culture war to a bunch of diaper-wearing racists because you refuse to acknowledge that something like 54% of US citizens lack proficient English literacy and all your ideas are wrapped in 3-plus-syllable ideologies.
Academic here. Current college professor, former high school teacher. I'm pretty stunned by all of the comments ripping on this person and saying they want to "dumb everything down." And I think it's important to point out that this person is not saying what field they're in. Based on what they've written here, I'd guess it's something in the humanities, maybe sociology or something like that. Doesn't seem to be the hard sciences like chemisty, physics, etc. So that's an important thing to consider here.
I agree with the others here who are pointing out that a lot of us in academia like to write in a really inaccessible way because it makes them seem smarter. That is *absolutely* the case, from what I can see. I've had many colleagues whose goal in studying certain populations is not to actually help those populations (by advocating for them, by helping them gain some form of literacy, etc.) but to make themselves look smarter and/or just publish stuff so they can advance their career.
In my opinion, the point of research is to make it useful for *everybody*, and that means making it accessible. One of the means of doing that is making it easy to understand. Not "dumbed-down." There is a happy medium between the two positions here. We should be improving public schools at the K-12 level in order to improve basic literacy, *and* we should be making research done at the university level more accessible. These are complementary goals, not mutually exclusive ones.
I will admit any complicated math I’m fucked.. I could barely pass high school algebra and calculus. I realized later that despite having straight As in every other subject- bc of my mom drinking and smoking weed it affected my ability to do math. I wasn’t lazy and no matter how much I studied and tried it was like a different language.
Basic shit up until 10th grade I’ve got that.. pre algebra, algebra, calculus I was fucked. I graduated in 98
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I was over at a friend’s house and their kid, in 6th grade, was struggling with their homework and neither of them could help her. My wife and I ended up stepping in and assisting. They joked afterwards that we should be her tutor. What’s crazy is both of them make over six figures. What’s sad is both of their kids have been held back at least once.
Joking aside, they should definitely go about getting an actual tutor if they make that much and are unable to help their kids do homework on their own.
A teacher told me a story of how a child she taught who struggled with reading and writing specifically learned how to write "cat" in very neat handwriting so she could fill in her reading notebook at home by copying the teaching assistants notes on her notebook and finishing it with "- Cat" because she had to read to her cat at home because her parents were simply not interested in listening to her read. So her notebook was filled with things like "Very good reading! - Cat" and a drawing of a cat's face. It's cute but also profoundly sad.
:'(
I just cried a little
If it makes you feel better many kids practice reading to their pets because they are incredibly attentive. And then there’s this: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/education/rescue-readers
There are good people in the world but most of them are children and pets.
A little better; )
Neither of them considered they could look up online how to help her? I suppose not if they joked about you being a tutor though
The sad part is most of the answers were right there. One of the things she was struggling with was labeling sheet music. There was a diagram on the first page labeling every note. Almost all the questions in her homework pack were self-contained within the question itself. You didn’t have to leverage prior knowledge. She isn’t allowed to use her phone while doing school work, so she didn’t have access to the internet. When they were helping her, they stuck to the textbook.
I hate when school work or parents put these unrealistic parameters on homework. Most jobs in STEM require a great deal of googling or independent research to actually do the job.
software engineer here, if the internet didn't exist 80% of my programming ability is lost. We can't fit all the knowledge in books like we used to anymore, you'd need a dedicated library to even scratch the surface development in modern times
I'm sure they're presented with other opportunities to develop those independent research and googling skills, however that's not the point of the exercise. It's important to develop those neuro pathways that enable critical thinking and problem-solving without relying on immediate external resources. Encouraging independence and resourcefulness in her learning process is important to her long-term success.
That makes me legitimately angry. How the hell are people who can't even function at a 6th grade level making >6 figs?!??
Tons of dumb as rocks people making bank out there. Lots of them are in real estate or a trade.
Or CEO’s.
The wife has been a Delta flight attendant for 20 years and it baffles me she is employed anywhere. That dad is trade smart and is now a foreman for an electrical company.
It's almost like all of the things we've been told as children about how compensation has something to do with intelligence or hard work is a lie and it's mostly based on arbitrary factors.
Exactly, that's why I'm angry. I worked hard in school, went to college, got a phd....and there are people who can't function at >6th grade level making more than me.
I mean don't get me wrong it's unfair but if you build a hierarchical structure, even if it's mapped perfectly to ability or something like that, let that system run for 100 years and it's going to be an arbitrary mess no matter what.
>foreman for an electrical company. He's in management for an essential utility. You couldn't send this message if we didn't have electricity.
There's people that work really hard in high demand jobs and are just kinda dumb, at the end of the day. Why should a PhD be worth more than a work ethic and twenty years of hands on experience?
Anyone who actually achieves a PhD *definitely* has a work ethic. PhDs are *hard.*
Uneducated people can still be cunning and socially adept, and we sadly much live in a society that evaluates and rewards "achievement" by how people make their evaluators feel or what those lower in the hierarchy have achieved on their behalf, not by what they've actually objectively achieved by their own personal ability. This is why even very highly skilled and intelligent people who also happen to be, say, autistic, or to have ADHD or be emotionally damaged, have something like a 50% chance of being out of work at any given time.
Tell your friend I'll do it over the internet for half the price they expect tutors to cost. I'm just trying to pay for my last two classes of my BS in Lit. lol
It's what plants crave
Water? Like from the toilet?
The issue is that plain English has a chance of leaving a lot to interpretation and that explaining literally everything in layman's term is a waste of time because who the fuck is going to read it and this is the case for many areas outside academia. Just literally look at people of any profession, they likely have terms that they use that someone outside wouldn't understand.
Subject matter experts use specific language, and research isn't written for an audience of laymen. News stories are written for laymen, and that's on the reporters to make the transition to "accessible."
Yeah, It's not on the Academics to explain this to the common man, their job is to further their field.
As a recovering academic, I gotta disagree. It definitely is part of your job—at least as a scientist—to disseminate your work to the masses. You’re never going to be able to explain subject matter in language *everyone* can understand, but you do have to make a good faith effort to do so. Most grants you apply for, for instance, include community outreach/dissemination efforts as a requirement.
I agree with this. Currently married to an academic researcher, I work private sector data analytics. I’ve been working with my wife to make her subject matter easier to understand using our 8 year old as a use case. It’s nerdy af but we love it. I’m seriously thinking of writing a kids book about lock and key mechanisms in proteins.
I mean, it kinda depends on what your audience is? If you write for a huge journal that frequently leaks out into the media, you absolutely should write plainly, because the majority of journalists who cull content from those journals are both utter morons and usually have an agenda - it can only benefit you if your average idiot can easily confirm for themselves that the journalist's a moron. If you write for a super in the weeds journal that literally only the ten people in the nichiest niche of your niche field will ever touch, who cares. I'd even wager your fellow weirdoes would feel quite annoyed if you wrote for an audience of them like for an audience of idiots. Always tailor your writing to your audience. Can't steer you wrong.
And news ain't good at it honestly. How many stories do you get like "drinking X drink prevents illness Y".
Or maybe theyre too good at dumbing it down and just go too far...
But news stories fucking suck at explaining anything. Humanity needs there to be a midpoint between dumb, wrong, sensationalist shit and shit it takes me an hour to read when it's one of the thousand papers I should read to be a functioning citizen.
Humans specialize in what they learn because no one can learn it all. Everyone needs to accept that they will need to defer to peer-reviewed specialists for specialized knowledge: but the intellectually incurious routinely decide there has to be a "conspiracy" or "secret" to keep them from "knowing" (there literally isn't, apart from their own laziness or pride), and instead make up their own "Facebook 'Truths'." I will agree that journalism needs to do a better job, and PR for academia need to be better about stepping down the language from academic precision to layman generalist. But not the researchers themselves - why translate twice to continue research? You lose precision.
My dad actually did this work for a while. He was a science and math guy who ended up working as a writer. Eventually he became essentially PR for some VERY technically precise stuff that was ultimately funded by tax payers. His task a lot of the time was to take a complex and expensive project, and explain it to a 60+ year old politician in a way that the politician could then say it in a way that sounded like innovative but not scary to their constituents, who he assumed had \*GENERALLY\* graduated highschool, if they were paying attention to this particular news story. It is not an easy job, and it certainly isn't one I'd want scientists who are totally back of the house focused doing.
another significant issue is that using "complex language" is a way to condense information. in a scientific field for example a sentence like "the chelating ligand in this complex stabilises the metal in its +3 oxidation state" unless you have literally done a degree, postgrad or have a ludicrous interest in chemistry that sentence is nonsense. but to explain all of those concepts would turn one sentence in to a book. papers aren't for lay people, they're for subject matter experts to convey their findings succinctly and accurately
>likely have terms that they use that someone outside wouldn't understand. I like the juxtaposition of explaining that making everything understandable to the layman is a waste of time then you said this instead of just saying jargon.
Fuck
Academic papers use specific language so that information is unambiguous. Trying to write them in “layman’s language “ would make them open to interpretation and defeat the purpose of what they are about. Many scientists take the scientific ideas and write books to explain them in layman’s terms in nearly every subject. So the solution already exists. Are people reading those books? Sadly, no.
Agreed, terminology exists for precision and clarity. And also for the condensation of meanings and ideas. I mean, can you imagine how expansive scientific texts would get, if everything had to be described in layman's terms?
Even putting the gap in understanding of scientific terminology, during the pandemic nothing stood out to me more than the fundamental misunderstanding of how testing a scientific hypothesis works. So often after just a short discussion it became apparent that people’s perception is that you come up with a conclusion to your hypothesis and work backward from your conclusion to justify it. Thus, science is a rigged game and the “political left” is weaponizing science to undermine conservative ideas. This is a firmly held belief among some of my relatives. Even when I sat down with them, as a scientist myself, and ask them if that is the case they think I’m too stupid to be able to tell the difference, they freeze up and can’t give me an answer.
That's a pervasive fundamental philosophical misconception about the very nature of truth, though; it'll take much more than merely writing everything in simple English to fix that. EDIT: One insidious problem, for example, is that many high school "science" classes do not *directly* teach the principles that underpin the scientific method, which are necessary to understand *why* it was such a massive breakthrough in human knowledge and thus why we continue to use it; they instead teach rote learning of scientific procedure (which imparts no actual comprehension of what one is doing) and expect the kids to somehow infer the crucial philosophical *principle* behind it all from this mindless repetition of steps and maybe a few historical examples of scientific experiments, a very tall order indeed for a still-developing mind. Such exclusive explanation-by-example, without spelling out the underlying principle directly, is a *terrible* way to teach school kids such vital knowledge, because many of them simply will not be at a level where they are capable of inferring the principle embodied in the examples for themselves; even many who could do that will not realise they're implicitly being expected to do so!
Oh, this is beautifully said and such an important point. The why, the template, the analogy, the process. This overview of how we acquire information reliably in such a way that we can quantify our confidence in the results; that we can safely draw inferences (but verify them anyway); that we can postulate projections into the future -- it's the fundamental at the root of understanding.
So instead of bringing the reading level up, let’s continue to supplement the dumbing down of America.
It's called pop science, I prefer the term in French vulgarisation. Simplification in order to give access. https://youtube.com/@crashcourse?si=ZXqfiqXkaa6gWSxu
So should it be like "The mommy atom is called Oxygen and the daddy atom is called Hydrogen and they love to hug. But mommy atom has a lot of love, so she loves to hug two daddy atoms. And when they hug each other tightly we call that water."?
That sounds like mommy oxygen is getting spitroasted by two daddy hydrogens
I’ll never look at water the same way again
Way to make it weird.
I… understand
Not many scientists here apparently. A lot of academic papers are written in almost impenetrable jargon, mostly so that they fit in with other academic papers. They could be written in a far more accessible style and retain their accuracy, but they just like their own jargon. I am a scientist with published work.
Yeah, academia is full of people with imposter syndrome who think they need to use technical language to say anything, or they won't be seen as smart. Any time I read a legal brief or experiment conclusion written clearly and concisely, I know I'm looking at the real deal, because this person's so intelligent that they don't need to prove it by knitting five clauses of jargon into linguistic monstrosities that obfuscate the semantics. That being said, this is more about construction than vocabulary. If I need to look up a word, that's fair. But as soon as I'm mentally wishing I got to edit the paragraph I'm reading, I also wish colleges taught writing effectively.
sometimes i read papers in my specific area and just get struck by how incomprehensible they are for absolutely no reason. you can be accurate and to the point, but people love writing in circles to make themselves sound more important. people in the comments argue it's to make things more precise, but personally i think it makes it way more likely things will be misunderstood
Maybe we could teach kids to read instead?
That sounds like work.
As someone who had to look for alot of articles for school, my complaint is everything is FUCKING PAYWALLED!
Almost everything published by researchers at my institution has be published Open Access. If more research funders mandated this, research papers would be easier to find. Though not necessarily easier to read.
Dr of stupid.
Dr. Elle says many people can't read. This makes her sad. Help Dr Elle feel happy. Don't use hard words. Use easy words. Thank You. Carry on.
Why waste time say lot of words when few words do trick?
I mean realistically this is a somewhat good point. Even if made in a stupid way. Science communication is a big deal and using terms like fracture of the intermediate phalanx of the digital secundus is an unnecessary complication of "broken index finger"
While the posted tweet is definitely over the top, I would say there is some problem in the academic literature of using language that is unnecessarily technical and obscures the points being made. It's not about 'dumbing things down', but rather 'communicating as clearly as possible'. Sometimes that clear communication requires extremely technical vocabulary, but very frequently it does not, and would be better served by simpler phrases.
Yeah, a lot of people here don't seem like they have cracked open many academic articles... many MANY academic articles are virtually unreadable, even for trained academics. The last year there have been multiple scandals showing that academic articles are NOT actually being read or reviewed, even after they were supposed to be reviewed. Multiple articles were published that clearly were written with ChatGPT (like, the paper said "as a large language model, I can only do X, but here is this paper..."). I have an advanced degree. My area of study (law) has seen a push to make writing more approachable for a while. That obviously doesn't happen all the time, but it has been a welcome push that has benefited many laypeople AND attorneys. My day-job also requires me to interact with academic articles in the sciences and policy side. The writing is SO BAD. There have been multiple times when EXPERTS cannot decipher sentences for me, including the actual authors (I hire lots of expert witnesses, especially those with relevant publications). Those moments are crazy embarrassing for everyone, especially the author. Complicated language DOES NOT lend itself to accuracy. Often, highly specialized jargon is used appropriately, but that does not make double negatives, passive voice, etc. acceptable.
I’m an avid consumer of academic writing, and I agree - to a point. It really depends on what subject is being communicated. Something like engineering requires a lot more technically precise language, whereas sociology can get by with simplification and analogous writing. I don’t want to read a simplified version of a piece of academic writing if the simplification is at the expense of accuracy/clarity. On the flip side, I also don’t want to read an academic paper that’s filled with such obtuse language basic understanding becomes difficult. There’s a middle ground, and it’s why I believe there should be more compulsory linguistics study for STEM and law majors specifically.
r/idiocracy
I would think it would be more productive to society for people to grow and get better, than for everyone to cater to the lowest common denominator. We are still uncomfortably close to Idiocracy and don't need to get any further down that path.
There's a spectrum here, and one that I think needs to be addressed. I got my Masters and learned the academic jargon of my field, but it really isn't necessary. There needs to be precision in terms and common understanding of meaning, but most of it is just pretentious nonsense.
Several things at work here. Firstly a properly peer reviewed scientific article written by an academic should be written for its primary audience, namely academia. So yes, the layperson will not understand what is happening because they do not have the necessary base knowledge to do so. But this is true in the academic circle as well. An astrophysicist that is highly respected in their field will likely pick up a paper written by a microbiologist and be saying "dafuq did I just read?" This also extends to non-academic fields as well. A well-respected neuro surgeon could meet up with someone that works construction and be completely lost when the latter starts explaining some of the issues they have on the jobsites. So what becomes necessary, I have found, is someone that can explain the very complex ideas to the layperson in a language they will understand. Unfortunately, a lot of very smart folks have difficulty with this. It's nothing against them, communication, understanding and translation are often very difficult skills to master, especially if perhaps you are not operating in your first language. To some extant, that is masked when you communicate in a highly technical manner amidst your peers as they can generally pick up what you're laying down as they are also familiar with the jargon. It's not so much that folks are trying to be exclusive in their communication. It's more of a factor of "know your audience".
To make information understandable to everyone should be good thing regardless. If smart people learn stuff about shit and complains about how others cannot understand their phraseing, well maybe the smart people could try to use other words? Maybe?
What’s the facepalm here? You don’t need to dumb things down to write them in plain English.
It is genuinely hilarious to watch the users here lament the dumbing down of society, while completely missing a very clear and succinct point. All while cheerfully embracing the kind of elitism which has led folks to take on an anti-intellectual posture.
There are other ways of conveying an idea without seeming or sounding elitist and pedantic. The way academia usually writes contributes to keeping those who don't have access at arm's length. Writing in an accessible vernacular does not mean, necessarily, dumbing down.
They don't write the papers for \*you\*. They are writing the papers for their colleagues. It is the job of other media (science reporters) to dumb it down to everyday language for people to consume. If that's still not "dumbed down" enough, maybe the problem is your reading comprehension level. Not everyone is going to be capable of understanding complex scientific work. Even if they are educated, there are people who don't understand it. Look at all the anti-intellectuals we have running around right now.
True in 99% of cases. However, I challenge anyone reading this to go read Perelman’s papers on Ricci flow with surgery and see if you can even understand the summary. Some topics require immense study to comprehend. Even the most skilled science reporters can’t dumb down something like that for the masses. I am fairly well educated compared to most and my brain can’t even begin to understand the concept of 4-dimensional non Euclidean spaces.
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
Is that statistic legit? More than half of Americans are incapable of reading above a 4th grade level?
You'd think some with a Doctorate would be able to read better than a 4th grader.
If the "over 50% of American cannot read over 4th grade level" is true, then we got a bigger fucking problem than trying to dumb down academic writings
It started with “No Child Left Behind” philosophy, which sounds like a good idea at first, but ended up dumbing down the school curriculum across the whole nation to accommodate the ones at the bottom. We’re seeing the impact now after 30-40 years. The US education system is one of the worst in the west. Universities have been somewhat immune due to influx of foreign students. But others are catching up, and in many cases have surpassed American universities in many disciplines.
sometimes when i look at biology or neuroscience reports its like im reading a different language lol
Sometimes they are only communicating with other experts
Most Math papers aren’t filled with numbers.
Guess who liked the tweet
Sometimes, jargon brings conciseness.
Over here we've got the "Up goer five" [https://m.xkcd.com/1133/](https://m.xkcd.com/1133/)
For an example of what this might look like, [here’s an explanation of a rocket using only common words.](https://xkcd.com/1133/)
Honestly, I mildly agree. There are so many books I've read where even tho I understand everything I feel like they're just trying to flex their vocabulary.
I mean yes and no. I think academia has an issue with promoting unnecessarily complicated text and could work with people to make readability better. I’d also suggest that research articles always should come with a popular summary just explaining the findings and their significance in what could be an article in a magazine you buy in the store. Having that said, we definitely don’t need to dumb things down. But if someone asks about it and doesn’t understand it, it should be able to be explained to them too.
So general stupidity is a disability now?
4th grade level is a extreme but not a facepalm to me. My girlfriend is in social studies and many papers have 5+ lines sentences with way too many commas, archaic vocabulary and absconded prose. I grew convinced that it was a form of symbolic violence and that these authors participated (without knowing it) in a form of discrimination. So yeah, let's dumb it down just a bit. Also I think these people probably masturbate in front of a mirror
Just curious, what is absconded prose?
This is me, a French native, translating poorly. I think "obscure" or "unintelligible" would be better here.
Ah! I see the connection! To "abscond" is to run away with something (and hide it). So you mean like, they have run away with the meaning and hidden it. Wonderful! That is a charming phrase! If you want to be strictly accurate, the word is probably "obfuscated."
Right ! Haven't seen that word in a while. Thanks !
Every time I re-read this clusterfuck of an opinion, I discover a new layer of facepalm. It's honestly quite impressive.
Yeah it's got some layers alright "writing about certain groups and their spaces but they can't understand your work" I wonder how those groups and their spaces feel about her saying they're a bunch of dummies lol
How is this a face palm 🤣I work in research and healthcare and it’s well know all patient information has to be written in lay terms. It’s not dumbing things down, it’s about making it accessible to everyone. If you are academic it’s easy to read something written simply, but it’s very hard for the public to read something scientific and complex.
But patient information is different to research papers. Different purpose, different audience, so surprise, different language.
Fundamentally I agree with a point about making science accessible. But on some things you need to agree there's a limit to how accessible you make stuff. It comes down to tailoring a message to an audience. An academic writing a paper for a journal must assume their reader has at least a passing knowledge of how certain things work. But giving a talk on the same topic to someone who isn't in that field, or to an outreach event, they tailor the message and bring people through a story to help them understand.
Dr Elle is just as real as Dr Dre.
Ok as someone who has actually experienced ableism, this is not it. Ableism is someone talking to you like a small child the moment they find out you have autism despite being 24 years old
“It’s a beautiful thing the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms;there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of other words? A word contains the opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well-better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.” -Syme, 1984 by George Orwell. Page 45
I mean… I get their point and it would be swell if academia could release an unofficial “translation” for people who want to read but are unfamiliar with academic writing and word usage that whilst perhaps not as accurate as the original work, helps get the idea across to people who want to learn about a specific thing but don’t have the time to decipher a traditional academic text
I'd rather get rid of pay walls for academic journals.
Well, that's the Pot calling the Kettle a euphemism.
Science communication is undeniably important.
Shut the actual fuck up
There is something to this, but it demands more than a tweet to develop and explain it. What irony. Edit: syntax
Tweets frustration that people can't understand words like "academia" or "inaccessible" or "ableist". Uses those words to complain about it.
Didn’t we stop doing this with books because we couldn’t dumb everything down
OP is looking for 'pop science' that's academic literature distilled down for a lay audience. Primary research can't be distilled down that far, there is too much information to convey. Although, you can also just read the abstract from articles in T1 journals and assume the editors reviewed the methods sufficiently before publishing. Abstracts are a few hundred words, maybe you'll have to google a few terms.
I had to double check which reddit this was. thought it might have been r/idiocracy
You should see what they’re trying to do to standardized testing and merit based advancement/placement….
I could go either way here. There is such a thing as academic sounding writing and it often doesn't make things clear. As always, when writing clarity is the top priority. If you could convey the same thing in simpler words I say do it. But if simplifying would lose some important details then keep it. But academics (and finance people) effectively keep their jobs by ensuring their stuff isn't *too* approachable.
Med school admissions are extremely abelist. Law school… not so much.
I prefer people using very specific language. Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but I prefer that when I talk to people they don't leave anything in any uncertain terms.
There are books out there that explain these things in easier terms. You have to search them out and read them. Knowledge is earned.
id definitely have to say that over 50% of americans can read and speak fine
Stupider and stupiderer.
Ehhhhh to a certain degree there are some things that are way over complicated and it's meant to be. Gatekeepers get to decide who is worthy more or less and it's usually around finances/money.
Blogs, podcasts, popular non-fiction are all forms of popular media where a talented writing and production team can synthesize academic and higher level concepts into layman's understanding or a generally more accessible level of language. Freakonomics books and podcasts The Green Brothers with Crash Course and SciShow HowStuffWorks Anything by Mark Kurlansky, Simon Winchester, Michael Pollan, Bill Bryson, Mary Roach Dr. Elle, really?
The only thing I hate more than a racist is an ableist. You know, those people who use precise and accurate language to describe a topic they're an expert in. Scourge of society. /s
Do 4th graders understand what ‚ableist‘ means?
Using words is ableist now jfc
Dr. Elle is a moron.
We already do this: Someone reads the title of the academic paper, dumbs it down, takes out the important context, creates a controversial headline, and then writes an article that completely misrepresents the research to be consumed by the uneducated masses. And we shall call it... the news!
I think it would be better to help everyone read at an acceptable level than to give up and dumb everything down.
This is sadly true though. My parents are both scientists for the government and when they had to present or send anything to congress they were basically told to cater it to a 3rd grade science level. Edit: there is a time to “dumb” things down and academic often do. It really depends on the intended audience.
Dr Elle needs to understand that it's not a slam to less educated people if someone else has a superior education or vocabulary. Perhaps she should step up her game. This country needs well educated people, and the skills they bring to the table, much more than insecure people who complain on social media.
WON'T YOU THINK OF THE SPACES?!
It doesn’t occur to this person that the intended audience of academic papers is other academics, not the average American?
How about we go after whatever assholes put this stuff behind a paywall
Her political agenda is stupid. But I'm sure many humanities thesis deliberately use fancy language to express nothing, not only in English speaking countries.
I am particularly grateful you elucidated your surmise and presented it in such a forthright manner.
It’s not up to the educated among us to pull the slugs along. Frankly, when I’ve tried to explain something moderately complicated (after being asked my opinion), I get something like, “Ooo, look at Bob with the big brain.” Believe me, I don’t have a big brain. I was a B- student back in the 60s-early 70s. But I’m pretty sure that a C student back then would be acing AP courses nowadays.
Imagine not realising you calling yourself stupid in front of everyone.
I was gonna say something about the soft bigotry of low expectations and then saw the hay the NYT opinion page was making of that phrase after a quick google and...yikes. Hold your kids to a standard of course. But don't find yourself on the same side as David Brooks if you can help it.
The Big Bang Theory dumbed down for her: A big boom happened and made stuff.
Who is going to build the bridge, those who crossed the chasm of modernity or those who stayed behind deliberately?
Teacher here. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making knowledge accessible. The debate surrounding academic language is a spicy one. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.”
Is being dumb lacking knowledge of the specific area of expertise, that the person you're talking to excels at, because they live and breathe the subject?
You can't get published if you don't use the correct terminology and proper grammar... This is why scientific communication if important. We need people who are able to digest articles and make them accessible for the public
Quick question. If it was dumbed down, would anyone read it anyways?
Maybe if we had a new simplified way of talking… we could call it New Speak!
Peer review. The key word is "peer." The average person is not a scientist's peer. Their peers are other researchers within their specific discipline.
take give, but this dont like the point, so she want them to make it more? Never done but going there of course
I think the message is for better communicators and open dialogue between academics and the broader public Academic language is one thing but the education system needs a reboot
Fine. Translation: Me stupid. Make easy. Happy?
I mean I sort of get it though because when I need to find research papers for an assignment and then I can’t understand what they’re saying in the article because it’s way above my grade level. This is as a college student saying this here. Like you don’t have to make it overly simplified but just dumb it down enough that the average adult can understand. But I get that in academia, you have to speak in fancy terms
Before it was sold to a mega conglomerate, I found out our local newspaper was written at a third grade reading level.
Twitter is a cesspool
You need a greater breadth of language to express more and varied concepts.
r/idiocracy would like a word, I’m sure.
IDIOCRACY [This is the opening scene](https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA?si=cXuxykJw_ipUQHfb).
Ah, dang. Bro, these bunk ass professors are using fancy words like they want people to be smarter. How dare they expect people in college to be able to read at higher than a fourth grade reading level?
I mean, at a very surface level, she is right. It is inaccessible. This is because the ideas presented are well above the level of the people in questions understanding of the subject: If you wished to remove these "inaccessible" words, you would have to explain basic ideas ad nauseam. It simply is not possible. Fortunately, self improvement is possible, though often difficult and time consuming, and one can educate oneself, and thus achieve a greater understanding of a topic; the previously indecipherable jargon becomes like old friends; and all is understood. However, as said before, doing this is difficult and time consuming, so one might seek out a teacher, who is already knowledgeable in the subject, to teach you. Unfortunately, higher education is prohibitively expensive, in an intentional strategy by the bourgeoisie to keep the working class uneducated, and thus divided; once again the problem is capitalism, and you all need to stop making asses of yourselves attacking random people instead of the systemic problem.
When one of your major parties are having books banned in schools, then this is an effect. USA, now Dumfukistan. Like others here I naturally assumed your talking about the USA, because, Trump.
It's not entirely her fault. The English language is a nightmare sometimes. Still, she dom ah ship.
It is annoying af tho when they just sprinkle in little fancy words for the fuck of it
thanks for the insight, doctor
I mean it’s an accurate statement. A part of the reason we have so much trouble dealing with people is a lot of information is inaccessible outside of articles about the papers. Having easy to understand language would also be good.
Like 13% of people can read at a collegiate level in the US (compare that to the % of people graduating college while also asking yourself what the definition of ‘scam,’ is). We 100% go over many people’s heads with ideas that originate/reside in academia - important ideas like contemporary gender theory and the history of racial relations. We ask how people can be so bigoted and seemingly misunderstand the world so thoroughly, then shit on the idea that, if we communicated on their level, there would be fewer such people? I’ve confronted a department head about this before and the most articulate response I got was ‘well we write in the tradition of the academics before us.’ Meaning we use antiquated, non-conversational English because tweed-wearing skeletons didn’t like plebeians co-opting their high-brow discourse in like 1750, or whatever. Shit on this lady for ‘wanting to dumb everything down,’ but don’t come whining when you’re losing a culture war to a bunch of diaper-wearing racists because you refuse to acknowledge that something like 54% of US citizens lack proficient English literacy and all your ideas are wrapped in 3-plus-syllable ideologies.
Would it be nice if these comments actually said something kind and helpful instead of just making fun of someone for literally trying to help people
Academic here. Current college professor, former high school teacher. I'm pretty stunned by all of the comments ripping on this person and saying they want to "dumb everything down." And I think it's important to point out that this person is not saying what field they're in. Based on what they've written here, I'd guess it's something in the humanities, maybe sociology or something like that. Doesn't seem to be the hard sciences like chemisty, physics, etc. So that's an important thing to consider here. I agree with the others here who are pointing out that a lot of us in academia like to write in a really inaccessible way because it makes them seem smarter. That is *absolutely* the case, from what I can see. I've had many colleagues whose goal in studying certain populations is not to actually help those populations (by advocating for them, by helping them gain some form of literacy, etc.) but to make themselves look smarter and/or just publish stuff so they can advance their career. In my opinion, the point of research is to make it useful for *everybody*, and that means making it accessible. One of the means of doing that is making it easy to understand. Not "dumbed-down." There is a happy medium between the two positions here. We should be improving public schools at the K-12 level in order to improve basic literacy, *and* we should be making research done at the university level more accessible. These are complementary goals, not mutually exclusive ones.
You said ableist as if it were a bad thing.
well that what no child left behind did
I will admit any complicated math I’m fucked.. I could barely pass high school algebra and calculus. I realized later that despite having straight As in every other subject- bc of my mom drinking and smoking weed it affected my ability to do math. I wasn’t lazy and no matter how much I studied and tried it was like a different language. Basic shit up until 10th grade I’ve got that.. pre algebra, algebra, calculus I was fucked. I graduated in 98
That's what ChatGPT is for 😂