It definitely requires you to think for yourself, that's why the prompts are nuanced and often posed as questions. There is no one size fits all. :) If you have any feedback based on the texts you are working on, please email us! We are constantly working to improve.

My students (researchers) often wonder the same at the beginning of a class. They all end up realizing that clarity can be creative and even elegant but that it needs to come first, always. Each person has to discover it for themselves though :)

I actually really dislike the phrase "dumbing down". I think simplicity in structure and thoughtful word choice is incredibly difficult to achieve.

How frustrating :(

This is also an interesting discussion because in the fields I work in most often, the push is towards explaining all jargon and using as little jargon as possible -- we are moving more consciously toward accessibility.

Absolutely! But also writing in your first language requires editing, right ;) I see your point, it requires a different kind of editing.

Hi James, I am curious who is viewing simple words as inferior, which countries are you referring to?

The most formal possible is actually not the de facto standard. I teach writing to hard science, social science and law researchers, and writing styles guides recommend clarity over anything else nowadays -- in all the fields I am involved in.

Hi Michael, I could not open your link! I would advocate balance over formality for formality's sake. There are enough necessarily long, uncommon, hard to understand words in a academic writing. Do we need to use the most formal option for every single word?

Hmmm. Her struggles may come more from being a non native speaker than from dyslexia. Perhaps your brother also has an extensive vocabulary in his second language,?

Interesting because she said dyslexia was her reason for struggling. But it might have more to do with being a non native speaker of English than with dyslexia. Then again, these are groups of phds with very high levels of English.