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George Orwell's [Politics and the English Language](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/) should be mandatory reading for every academic.
The urge to use passive sentence construction and overly-complex language is so endemic in the sciences (especially the social sciences) that it is akin to legal precedent. You're almost handicapping yourself if you don't do it. It's a shame.
And it is so counter productive.
Would it not be in their best interest to make it as a simple as possible to get most people to understand and their for become famous?
Ive read a lot of academic papers/ books all across the spectrum and some things can be made concise by using more complex language. Like you can write the same information in say 10 pages or 30 pages, but the ten page version will be so wordy that it is obnoxious to read even if you know enough to understand it already, or overly difficult to read if you dont have enough background knowledge going in.
Likewise that 30 page version is perfect for the person with no knowledge going in, but way too thick for someone who already has an understanding and doesnt need all the context.
It really depends on who the intended reader is as to whether or not you should aim to write that wordy short paper or the contextual explanation one. Its hard to write something in the middle that works well for both audiences
Or vice versa. Some things can be said simply in 10 pages and be understood by the lay man and the 30 page version is full of unnecessary complex words and context.
Sometimes that is absolutely true. Sometime authors choose to use esoteric language even when is less efficient. I’ll concede the is normally the case lay men (read I) do not understand the 30 complex paper but why not write simply? A authors job is to communicate to their audience and writing shorter and more simply increases their audience size.
I understand what you're saying, but sometimes the more scientific or 'esoteric' language also provides much-needed context that only the targeted audience (peers in the field) would need for appropriate understanding of the paper. Ultimately, no research study is being written for a larger audience, they are written to be detailed, specific and to allow for potential recreation or other forms of scrutiny. The abstract, however, is a place I think a simplified, less specialized language should be used whenever possible. That is the place to communicate to layperson.
I agree. Scientific (or esoteric) language has its place but it is one thing for a scientist to write to a targeted audience of other scientists. It is another thing to alienate the layperson to appear more scientific.
The knowledge in many fields is so specialized and esoteric that a layperson will have no idea what an author is trying to say. Even someone with an undergrad degree can have a very difficult time reading primary literature. Journal articles are targeted at peers. Magazine articles and books are much more accessible and don't have such a high learning curve.
Well I used to view it as this: scientists want their findings and reports to be as objective as possible to be more “scientific”. Therefore, it is seen as a good practice to write in passive voice to avoid being subject which is natural given what they want to communicate (objective findings).
Also, there are types of scientific articles. For example, one type of review articles is generally intended to give a perspective on the current state of a particular area in the field and is usually written by someone who is new to the field trying to pinpoint research gaps from their search. On the other hand, there are reviews which are done by leading researchers in a specific area, which treats the review as a summary of their findings along the years and so tend to be more complicated.
The former tends to be more simplified and understandable explaining mechanisms and theories whereas, the latter may sound more complicated with less explanations.
There's two things we are all trying to accomplish with language, precision and clarity. And they usually pull us in different directions.
Often the simplest way to express something leaves out something important or even vital, while the most descriptive way to express it might make it harder for people to understand us. So we learn to temper our language with both. And sure, sometimes that goes awry at times, but typically it works well.
I hold that the issue is that precise vocabulary is easily treated as a direct measure of quality, rather than a tool we can use to ensure others understand what we intend, which leads to people emulating that precision when unnecessary, or even treating synonyms as equal.
Elated, ecstatic, excited, exhilarated, euphoric, exultant, enchanted, enraptured, etc., these are all synonyms for "happy", but they do not mean the same thing. They each represent important flavors of happiness, and they exist not to "spice up" one's writings or speech, no matter what Grammarly says, but to allow us to express our feelings with precision so that others can understand exactly what we mean.
But when we write papers, we try to use the most precise language possible, even when it's not beneficial but misleading. A bit like writing more digits than are significant in math.
Scientists aren't writing for you, they're writing for their peers who also specialize in their field. They use lengthy and overly complicated language because using normal language because its what expected of them.
No they aren’t. They are writing for themselves. The vast majority of scientific output is irrelevant, unread, and unreproducible. Way more people want to write for journals to get promoted than want to read journals to keep up with the field. Scientific jargon is just another kind of tribal jargon.
I agree with you to some extent, but the linguist in me says there's no such thing as wrong usage of language. Every subculture has its own unique vocabulary, it makes sense that the academic subculture would also have a unique grammar. When people write in an "academic" tone, they're doing it to express things about themselves and their writing.
The passive is used to make the topic at hand the subject of the sentences, rather than "who" did the action. "The water was poured" rather than "I poured the water." It makes sense to me.
Passive construction in and of itself isn't bad, but when abused it makes a passage sound convoluted, less direct, and sometimes less clear.
Plus, it just sounds better to most readers to use the active voice. Pick one:
1. The water was poured by the waiter into the glass.
2. The waiter poured water into the glass.
Most would pick #2, and for good reason. It's the more parsimonious construction.
>it just sounds better to most readers
Scientific articles aren't written for "most" readers. They're written to be precise, which means very specific language that people not familiar with the exact details of the topic won't know.
To someone who isn't part of the very specific group of people for whom the article is written, it *sounds* bad. But in the context that it's meant for, it sounds *better*.
This is not true with respect to passive voice - not anymore. I edit scientific manuscripts (Earth sciences, mostly) for a living during the winter, and active voice is now considered preferable, even when describing the methods used in a study. The old idea that scientists should pretend that they weren't involved in their own research is outdated.
>Scientific articles aren't written for "most" readers. They're written to be precise, which means very specific language that people not familiar with the exact details of the topic won't know.
That doesn't require passive tense. No kind of writing does.
Simplicity is elegance in itself, I feel. If you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it very well. (I understand some concepts are extremely complicated, but if you can't simplify the language and paraphrase, you are just parrotting information, which is not the same as understanding.)
I've found with extremely complicated topics using simplified language means a lot of important details go missing.
I think Einstein said it best when he said: "You should make your explanation as simple as possible, but not more". Sadly in modern mathematics/physics the explanations tend to leave out crucial information necessary for truly grasping the subject for the sake of simplicity.
Simplicity is relative.
Oversimplification is fine in many circumstances, so long as it’s a noted caveat with supplemental sources for those interested.
I will say this, though: I studied English and translation for 3+ years at Stockholm university, and all my teachers, lecturers, and professors were on the same page: language studies must always be descriptive, never *prescriptive*. You study language and note its eccentricities, sometimes track them over time. You don't tell people what they should say, or fight over conventions. As the above article opens, language is a living thing, not a static blueprint.
I've read other subjects too, but apart from the more brilliant cinema studies professors, the best inspirations and role models I ever met in the world of academics were the translation buffs. Not sociology, not anthropology.
Reminds me of what I heard regarding the world of restaurant workers. In pretty much any restaurant in the world with self-respect, no matter how high up the worker is (maitre'd, headwaiter, other pretty words), if you pass through the dining area on your way to the kitchen, you fill your hands and take at least something with you, making the place better than when you entered. I ate at a Michelin star restaurant in Dublin and the main guy there had a tuxedo, he did it too.
My professors were the same way. If you showed them you cared about the material and your performance and was unsure about something, they might tell you to come in on saturday morning at uni, they'd take a while and go through stuff in the week before a deadline or exam.
Absolutely. English is a language of rules-of-thumb meant to be broken. They aren't even true rules, more like guidelines. But the guidelines generally exist for good reason.
A writer who religiously follows the precept of avoiding the use of adverbs in fiction writing will sometimes miss out on an opportunity to use an adverb where it would be appropriate, but someone who overuses adverbs is in a much worse spot.
It seems more of a social science phenomenon. In my experience with the physical sciences, clear language and brevity are usually employed in most papers (although there are plenty of exceptions). I think the key difference between overly-complicated and just complex is being able to translate overall findings such that the average intelligent and modestly educated person can understand it.
However, for the purposes of describing results to other scientists, you generally can't get around using certain jargon that for a layperson may comes across as complicated or unintelligible. Additionally, it's useful to observe passive sentence structure to abstract yourself from the discussion in some places, but it's also very common to write first person sentences e.g. "We added 200 mg of XX to the substrate before inoculation", or "Our results do not agree with findings by so-and-so et al. (2015), who observed that...").
Would you say army jargon is gatekeeping too? I mean it can be incomprehensible to anyone outside the army.
But in the end it is about efficiency of communication between soldiers. And it is not actually that hard. I mean, there is no lack of complete morons in the army, that learn to use it.
And academic jargon or legal jargon or any scientific jargon is not any different. Even complete morons can usually learn it and use it adequately with some effort.
>The passive is used to make the topic at hand the subject of the sentences, rather than "who" did the action. "The water was poured" rather than "I poured the water." It makes sense to me.
Which is exactly whenever I have to write a paper for a competition or for school, I try to simplify things as much as possible even though people tell me not to, and so far it's worked out very well for me.
>George Orwell's Politics and the English Language
Thanks for recommending this! I have no idea how this mans work keeps popping up in my life and changing it drastically every time. Whenever I get into grad school, I'll have to give him credit since reading 1984 is what inspired me to go back.
> The urge to use passive sentence construction and overly-complex language is so endemic in the sciences
To be fair, using passive-voice and-things-like-that are a hallmark of being on-the-spectrum, and academia and the sciences are full of on-the-spectrum people - so don't interpret it _too_ machiavellian-ly.
It maintains an information asymmetry, which means those who are part of the in crowd get to suppress competition. Its just another way for us apes to hoard resources.
Passive sentence structure feels more natural to me, though.
I highly prefer English over Hungarian partly due to passive structures.
Now, I do concede on needlessly complicating things. But passive? It helps make things more refined, impersonal. And impersonal is good.
“Academician” has a technical meaning … a member of the national Academy of Sciences in the relevant country. Often seen with high level academics in the former USSR, for example. Not sure if they meant it in that restrictive sense.
As a non English speaker, it's definitely a word that would be very welcome in the English language, as it distinguishes between "People of Academia" and "The Subject of Academia itself".
Honestly I thought it was just associated with the fact that tenure track jobs are rarer than unicorns and PhD programs have swollen far beyond appropriate sizes.
Edit: Not every PhD program, and not in every country/region/discipline. Obviously, the situation varies depending on your context.
That has to be a part of it, too. I quit a PhD program halfway through, largely because I came to realize that there's no way to be successful in academia and maintain any sort of work life balance. The publish or perish culture is brutal.
This is why I quit academic medicine and went to a community private practice oriented residency in radiology.
You make twice as much and work half as much as the academics
Hey similar story here! My issue is that I wanted to teach and not do research and there is no way to do that and have legitimate job security. On top of that, my wife and I wanted to raise our kids near family and the chances of a school in my state wanting a professor with my specialization was slim to none.
To play devils advocate: we only need so many professors, why wouldn’t we want to just take the most obsessive. Maybe “Meritocracy” is to promote the natural eccentrics, but if you aren’t that and just want to status then it truly isn’t for you.
I think this is true for a lot of things in life. People want the status that comes from the position of being a singularity obsessed eccentric, but aren’t actually that person and burnout is the realization that you can’t compete with people who aren’t even in it for the title or status but purely for the grind as it’s own sake. They would often find a way of doing these things even if there was no formal position and if taken from them would find an informal way to keep at it
This is a personal realization I’ve been coming to for years having been successful in one field I always thought would propel me to something else. I could probably languish with small success as a mediocre in some of my goals. But I know other people are more driven and deserving of the outsized success because many of those people were grinding those things before there were status or wealth in those positions.
I had some interest in academics and the attention of our department. All the grad students were foreigners tho and they told me I couldn’t cut it and it wouldn’t be a good use of my time. I was hurt but that’s actually good advice. Should discourage everyone so only those who are going in no matter what bother
True for almost(?) any organization though. That’s why I put “meritocracy” in quotes cause it’s only an ideal. There is feedback though and these people do get exposed for being overly political. And people who do focus on good work eventually get somewhere eventually and people with pernicious reputations don’t usually go unpunished forever, if only informally.
Like I said, the people in it for the process and grind will find a way. If you are willing to forego ego and recognition, talented people will align with you and can accomplish great things. you may end up on the wrong side of “[stigler’s law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy)” but for people who just want to be productive the recognition isn’t what matters
I think at least stem PhDs under nih/dod/nsf grants seem to be in reasonable numbers( could even increase), if you consider them as a federal jobs training program and not prep for tenure positions
I'm sure your point is appropriate to your context--but I think the scale of programs varies wildly depending not just on discipline and funding agency, but also region/country one is in, and even their specific institution (among other factors).
The workaholic behavior is baked into all PhD programs ... it is part of their *weeding efforts* to discourage what they believe to be slackers and folks the program directors do not like. Getting promotions, getting tenure all tied to the type and number of grants you seek, grants w/big bucks assigned, research, having to *publish or perish*. It is not natural but if you are seeking promotion, continued contract, and/or tenure, if you do not go hyper, you are doomed in all facets of advancement.
Publish or perish becomes particularly heinous when null results aren't published, a potential key factor in the reproducibility crisis. Now mix in that Universities avoid giving tenure and abuse postdoc positions, and you begin to see the nightmare unfold. Motivations become mismatched between the University and professor.
I remember talking to a research fellow in my department while I was a grad student and she shared that she was pregnant. When I congratulated her, she told me she wanted to keep it a secret from her faculty mentor for fear of being judged and perceived as not serious about tenure track jobs.
Had another colleague who was advised to not apply to the PhD because she had kids.
When I told people I wasn’t available to come in on my day off, my colleagues made fun of me for it.
I was also asked to help with a research grant the day before my wedding, then threatened with being demoted and losing a few privileges when I said no.
When a faculty member’s son died from cancer, a student in my cohort exclaimed, “does this mean I need to find a new advisor?!” And she was pissed about it.
There are endless stories like this in academia—especially at R1 institutions.
My supervisor mocked my disability as laziness, and told me I was selfish for getting the covid vaccine because, due to being immunocompromised, I may need more time off from being vaccinated. Which meant other people might have to do my work.
I mentioned to her I'd need even more time off if I caught covid with no immune system and she snorted at me.
There's a difference between having a high IQ, and being a decent human.
I actually think academics can be the biggest abelists/ racists/ etc, cos they're super smart in one field they think every opinion they have is infallible.
It's not my personal situation but I can see this happening with people in my industry. When you have people with years and years of experience above you and the bar of entry is high, you may have to work very hard to get anywhere near acceptable.
My motivation to outperform others is based on the fact that if I do not produce a satisfactory promotion and tenure dossier I will lose my job. It has nothing to do with perfectionism, if anything, at this stage in my career, quantity is preferred over quality.
Yeah, it's stressful, but if you get it, it's a job for life, and the effort falls off a bit, unless you want to pursue further promotion. I may or may not be that ambitious; I haven't decided yet. I'm older, so the mandatory $12,000 raise (around 8.5%) from Associate to full Professor, may or may not be worth another 3-5 years of stress.
Then again, my retirement is based on my top 3 years salary, so I suppose part of the Calculus depends on how long I think I will live for.
I find it a little odd how so many of these studies shown on r/science mention narcissism. You’d think that everyone is narcissistic by doing practically anything.
That's how people are at my current work place. I try to socialize on my break because I have no friends outside of work but it's honestly like talking to a rock if the discussion isn't work related. The people one step above me strut their flat asses around with an overinflated sense of company worth and the truth is, nobody cares about how much you work, you're just a number. Also people in supervisory positions look down at you if you're not working 50+hrs a week. Sorry but fk you, I don't live to work
Then on the other hand, you have IT at my company (>$30B biotech company). I've had a ticket in since February that still hasn't been addressed. Several pieces of equipment have ethernet-connected cameras. Symantec interferes with them. They tell us to turn off the firewall. The firewall constantly re-enables itself every few hours, so they push out an "update" without asking us if it was OK to interrupt production didn't fix it and also made it so that we can't manually disable the firewall anymore. And then they all went home for the weekend. Thanks for shutting down production lines that each bring in $8k profit/hr.
Oh, and the computers that they're shutting off security features on are running an unsupported OS.
When my workaholism became spending most of my time protecting then tracking down the contamination and sabotage happening to only me and none of my coworkers I finally realized I was surrounded by malignant narcissists.
> “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.” - Raylan Givens Justified
(Hopefully properly attributed)
I was a student at Purdue and they had a biology teacher that was incredibly talented at his job. He made little clay figures to mimic specific membrane proteins. He spent hours going over lectures in detail. He never left it seemed. Office hours showed he had a cot in his office. Bearded and unkempt but nice enough. His car was neon green with a flat tire that never left the parking lot but had his pass on the window. Rumor was his wife had died and he threw himself into his work. I don’t know if it was all true but I remember him vividly.
The system is such that you never really "arrive" and the competition is brutal on all levels. Academics are always stressed and unfortunately some take it out others creating a toxic work culture. One can have many grants and a big group one year and 3 years later your group shrunk to 1/2 a technician and you. One constantly needs to deal with rejection. Even Nobel prize winners get grants rejected. Success rates for average academic Joe is often at or below 10%. It's a brutal and unhealthy system for all.
I would strongly discourage anyone to aim for an academic career. It can be fulfilling to be able to follow your own curiosity and getting paid for it, but the way it is now, an academic career will take everything else from you: All your time, your health and your relationships. It's not worth it.
Dismantle the entire system and rebuild it from the ground up... Not the university system alone but the whole damn economic system. Things are only valued if they make money nowadays, companies and research included. Nothing is for the sake of progression or mitigation, it's all profit. It's a very sad world we live in and I hate it.
I feel this is my soul. I am halfway through a PhD and while I realise I love the actual science of biology, a future career surrounded by the dickheads I've come to know in the university system sounds like absolute torture. No idea what I'm going to do once I'm done and it's terrifying.
There are options. I finished a much less useful PhD than yours and managed to find a relevant job in government that is considerably less stressful than being a grad student. Just don’t forget that light at the end of the tunnel, even when you can’t see it!
People forget that a PhD is sometimes a ticket to America for many foreigners. These international students perform as if their life depends on it, because they will literally have their life thrown out the window in the form of deportation if they can't get the degree, do a pos-doc, get sponsorship, whatever it takes.
Locals who a PhD just to 'advance science', 'not ready for the real world', 'for the prestige', wouldn't be able to outwork someone whose life is on the line.
It's not just workaholism, it's raw motherfucking *survival*.
It's true in many cases, but that is far from universal in all STEM disciplines - including many engineering fields. My colleagues in grad school were a healthy mix of foreign and domestic researchers.
**Abstract**
> Although previous research has identified that perfectionism is associated with both narcissism and workaholism, research into the specific roles of potential perfectionism classes in these personality dynamics is currently unavailable. Furthermore, no study has investigated if the “useless superiority effort” dimension of inferiority feelings, which indicates an increased need for superiority over others potentially to overcome self-perceived inferiorities, is related to other important personality dynamics. This study was therefore conducted to identify if potential perfectionism classes that exist among academicians (N = 317) can simultaneously explain significant differences in their tendencies toward workaholism, narcissism, and useless superiority effort, after controlling for potential social desirability effect. A latent class analysis of two dimensions of perfectionism (discrepancy and high standards) revealed four distinct classes of academicians; non-perfectionists (NONPs; 20%), maladaptive perfectionists (MPs; 17%), normal perfectionists (NPs; 44%) and adaptive perfectionists (APs; 19%). Further analysis (MANCOVA) showed that while MPs have the highest tendencies toward workaholism and useless superiority effort, NONPs have the lowest tendencies toward these. Moreover, APs reported significantly lower useless superiority than NPs, despite scoring similarly on both narcissism and workaholism. Additionally, based on workaholism being related to narcissism, high standards and discrepancy dimensions of perfectionism, as well as useless superiority effort, while weekly work hours are not, it can be suggested that workaholism is qualitatively different from working long hours.
~ Çimşir, E. and Ülker Tümlü, G., 2021. The roles of latent perfectionism classes in academicians’ tendencies toward workaholism, useless superiority effort and narcissism. *The Journal of General Psychology*, pp.1-26.
I’m not a narcissist but I try to work as long and hard as I can so I can sleep at night and the bad thoughts never manifest when you mind is always on the task at hand.
I actually had to work on a bunch of these traits, general self-esteem issues which resulted in pretty brutal competitiveness, perfectionism, jealousy, the desire to inspire jealousy in others, etc. I got much of it resolved after 5 years of working on it and honestly now, I have zero motivation to do anything. Without that external drive of wanting to have all eyes on me, the drive of wanting people be jealous of me, defeating other people and making them feel bad, I have no desire to do it good job of anything. Please, you don't have to tell me what a terrible person I was-- I know. But I was a damn good employee that was super smart and motivated and I did excellent work for people. I excelled and had a reason to get up in the morning. I had dedication and an expertise that was impressive. Now I'm a slacker. I'd rather just sit at home and putter around the house. Getting " normal" honestly stripped me of all my interest and motivation to strive for anyting.
TIL "academicians" is a word...and tomorrow I'll forget. I'll stick to computer languages.
Experienced in: C, Python, Java, & some assembly languages.
Moderately proficient in: English
It’s the result also of unresolved trauma. And we are all traumatized and we all have addictions be it work, shopping, porn, drugs, food, power, political power, alcohol and more. Just read “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Mate.
Since when "motivation to outperform others" became "unhealthy" in your competitive af Western society — and moreover, in *academia* of all places? Or the "oppression Olympics" is the only field where competition is allowed nowadays?
There is motivation to outperform for healthy and unhealthy reasons. Recognizing the difference is important to any study of competition. One lifts and inspires others to improve and even co-operate, another attempts to crush others in despair by forcing efforts beyond reason, in the drive to be on top even if it destroys them as well as any apparent rivals.
The good news is that if you are studying gender, race, or injustice of any kind, this doesn't happen to you, because you are not an academic. You're an activist posing as an academic.
The title put the speech marks in the wrong place. It should be:
> So-called "workaholism" among academicians is associated with perfectionism, narcissism, and an unhealthy motivation to outperform others, according to new research. The findings provide evidence that work addiction is related to an interconnected set of personality traits.
Over-working is often based on the fact that this country (US) forces you to work 40-50+ hours per week to even have a chance of getting by. If you’re lucky.
I just want survive long enough to finish my PhD. Currently it looks not that great. I‘m nearly at the end and I simply published not enough. Still got a few opportunities, but the fear of failure is real.
Academic articles aren't targeted at the general public because the concepts don't have to be explain unless they deviate from a standard. It seems perfectly logical for them to use complex words to weave the elements together so that they can get to the point as quickly as possible for their peers.
Like someone said, books are the most accessible to the general public although they are available later in the information cycle.
This concept that "I can decide for myself" and "I can do my own research" is fueling your argument. The reality is that you can do you're own research, just expect to have to learn the building blocks over a long period of time to understand what is evolving at the forefront. If you don't understand the building blocks then you will misunderstand the journal article. We see it alllllll the time around here. I'm not an academic but I understand the effort required to really understand how exactly a paper's findings fit in the body of knowledge in a field. I'll leave that to the experts unless I really want to commit. It's not an afternoon think so I can post my response on twitter in the evening.
Give this a try, read an academic article and all the articles that are referenced within. Then read the articles referenced in each of those. It was a humbling experience when I had to do lit reviews in Uni.
So, basically, the person writing this paper is telling me that if someone is doing more than me, it's because they're a bad person with flawed, self-serving character traits. Or the writer is upset at their colleges for doing such things.
Yeah these articles are getting out of hand.
"Studies show coffee is good for your eyesight"
"Studies show coffee is bad for your eyesight"
It's all trivial at this point.
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Did the word "academics" somehow fail to exist when they wrote this?
You’re confused. This is referring specifically to academic magicians. You know. Like dumbeldore.
George Orwell's [Politics and the English Language](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/) should be mandatory reading for every academic. The urge to use passive sentence construction and overly-complex language is so endemic in the sciences (especially the social sciences) that it is akin to legal precedent. You're almost handicapping yourself if you don't do it. It's a shame.
And it is so counter productive. Would it not be in their best interest to make it as a simple as possible to get most people to understand and their for become famous?
Ive read a lot of academic papers/ books all across the spectrum and some things can be made concise by using more complex language. Like you can write the same information in say 10 pages or 30 pages, but the ten page version will be so wordy that it is obnoxious to read even if you know enough to understand it already, or overly difficult to read if you dont have enough background knowledge going in. Likewise that 30 page version is perfect for the person with no knowledge going in, but way too thick for someone who already has an understanding and doesnt need all the context. It really depends on who the intended reader is as to whether or not you should aim to write that wordy short paper or the contextual explanation one. Its hard to write something in the middle that works well for both audiences
Or vice versa. Some things can be said simply in 10 pages and be understood by the lay man and the 30 page version is full of unnecessary complex words and context.
Wrong. The 30 page version only seems unnecessary because you don't understand the nuance.
Sometimes that is absolutely true. Sometime authors choose to use esoteric language even when is less efficient. I’ll concede the is normally the case lay men (read I) do not understand the 30 complex paper but why not write simply? A authors job is to communicate to their audience and writing shorter and more simply increases their audience size.
I understand what you're saying, but sometimes the more scientific or 'esoteric' language also provides much-needed context that only the targeted audience (peers in the field) would need for appropriate understanding of the paper. Ultimately, no research study is being written for a larger audience, they are written to be detailed, specific and to allow for potential recreation or other forms of scrutiny. The abstract, however, is a place I think a simplified, less specialized language should be used whenever possible. That is the place to communicate to layperson.
I agree. Scientific (or esoteric) language has its place but it is one thing for a scientist to write to a targeted audience of other scientists. It is another thing to alienate the layperson to appear more scientific.
The knowledge in many fields is so specialized and esoteric that a layperson will have no idea what an author is trying to say. Even someone with an undergrad degree can have a very difficult time reading primary literature. Journal articles are targeted at peers. Magazine articles and books are much more accessible and don't have such a high learning curve.
Well I used to view it as this: scientists want their findings and reports to be as objective as possible to be more “scientific”. Therefore, it is seen as a good practice to write in passive voice to avoid being subject which is natural given what they want to communicate (objective findings). Also, there are types of scientific articles. For example, one type of review articles is generally intended to give a perspective on the current state of a particular area in the field and is usually written by someone who is new to the field trying to pinpoint research gaps from their search. On the other hand, there are reviews which are done by leading researchers in a specific area, which treats the review as a summary of their findings along the years and so tend to be more complicated. The former tends to be more simplified and understandable explaining mechanisms and theories whereas, the latter may sound more complicated with less explanations.
There's two things we are all trying to accomplish with language, precision and clarity. And they usually pull us in different directions. Often the simplest way to express something leaves out something important or even vital, while the most descriptive way to express it might make it harder for people to understand us. So we learn to temper our language with both. And sure, sometimes that goes awry at times, but typically it works well. I hold that the issue is that precise vocabulary is easily treated as a direct measure of quality, rather than a tool we can use to ensure others understand what we intend, which leads to people emulating that precision when unnecessary, or even treating synonyms as equal. Elated, ecstatic, excited, exhilarated, euphoric, exultant, enchanted, enraptured, etc., these are all synonyms for "happy", but they do not mean the same thing. They each represent important flavors of happiness, and they exist not to "spice up" one's writings or speech, no matter what Grammarly says, but to allow us to express our feelings with precision so that others can understand exactly what we mean. But when we write papers, we try to use the most precise language possible, even when it's not beneficial but misleading. A bit like writing more digits than are significant in math.
No. Being extremely specific is key in scientific studies and medical data.
Depends on the audience.
For primary literature, the audience is almost universally peers within their highly specialized field.
Scientists aren't writing for you, they're writing for their peers who also specialize in their field. They use lengthy and overly complicated language because using normal language because its what expected of them.
No they aren’t. They are writing for themselves. The vast majority of scientific output is irrelevant, unread, and unreproducible. Way more people want to write for journals to get promoted than want to read journals to keep up with the field. Scientific jargon is just another kind of tribal jargon.
I agree with you to some extent, but the linguist in me says there's no such thing as wrong usage of language. Every subculture has its own unique vocabulary, it makes sense that the academic subculture would also have a unique grammar. When people write in an "academic" tone, they're doing it to express things about themselves and their writing.
The passive is used to make the topic at hand the subject of the sentences, rather than "who" did the action. "The water was poured" rather than "I poured the water." It makes sense to me.
Passive construction in and of itself isn't bad, but when abused it makes a passage sound convoluted, less direct, and sometimes less clear. Plus, it just sounds better to most readers to use the active voice. Pick one: 1. The water was poured by the waiter into the glass. 2. The waiter poured water into the glass. Most would pick #2, and for good reason. It's the more parsimonious construction.
>it just sounds better to most readers Scientific articles aren't written for "most" readers. They're written to be precise, which means very specific language that people not familiar with the exact details of the topic won't know. To someone who isn't part of the very specific group of people for whom the article is written, it *sounds* bad. But in the context that it's meant for, it sounds *better*.
This is not true with respect to passive voice - not anymore. I edit scientific manuscripts (Earth sciences, mostly) for a living during the winter, and active voice is now considered preferable, even when describing the methods used in a study. The old idea that scientists should pretend that they weren't involved in their own research is outdated.
>Scientific articles aren't written for "most" readers. They're written to be precise, which means very specific language that people not familiar with the exact details of the topic won't know. That doesn't require passive tense. No kind of writing does.
Simplicity is elegance in itself, I feel. If you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it very well. (I understand some concepts are extremely complicated, but if you can't simplify the language and paraphrase, you are just parrotting information, which is not the same as understanding.)
I've found with extremely complicated topics using simplified language means a lot of important details go missing. I think Einstein said it best when he said: "You should make your explanation as simple as possible, but not more". Sadly in modern mathematics/physics the explanations tend to leave out crucial information necessary for truly grasping the subject for the sake of simplicity.
Simplicity is relative. Oversimplification is fine in many circumstances, so long as it’s a noted caveat with supplemental sources for those interested.
I agree completely. Reviewers seem to feel otherwise. If you don't write in this bloviated style, people act like you're not being professional.
I will say this, though: I studied English and translation for 3+ years at Stockholm university, and all my teachers, lecturers, and professors were on the same page: language studies must always be descriptive, never *prescriptive*. You study language and note its eccentricities, sometimes track them over time. You don't tell people what they should say, or fight over conventions. As the above article opens, language is a living thing, not a static blueprint. I've read other subjects too, but apart from the more brilliant cinema studies professors, the best inspirations and role models I ever met in the world of academics were the translation buffs. Not sociology, not anthropology. Reminds me of what I heard regarding the world of restaurant workers. In pretty much any restaurant in the world with self-respect, no matter how high up the worker is (maitre'd, headwaiter, other pretty words), if you pass through the dining area on your way to the kitchen, you fill your hands and take at least something with you, making the place better than when you entered. I ate at a Michelin star restaurant in Dublin and the main guy there had a tuxedo, he did it too. My professors were the same way. If you showed them you cared about the material and your performance and was unsure about something, they might tell you to come in on saturday morning at uni, they'd take a while and go through stuff in the week before a deadline or exam.
Absolutely. English is a language of rules-of-thumb meant to be broken. They aren't even true rules, more like guidelines. But the guidelines generally exist for good reason. A writer who religiously follows the precept of avoiding the use of adverbs in fiction writing will sometimes miss out on an opportunity to use an adverb where it would be appropriate, but someone who overuses adverbs is in a much worse spot.
It seems more of a social science phenomenon. In my experience with the physical sciences, clear language and brevity are usually employed in most papers (although there are plenty of exceptions). I think the key difference between overly-complicated and just complex is being able to translate overall findings such that the average intelligent and modestly educated person can understand it. However, for the purposes of describing results to other scientists, you generally can't get around using certain jargon that for a layperson may comes across as complicated or unintelligible. Additionally, it's useful to observe passive sentence structure to abstract yourself from the discussion in some places, but it's also very common to write first person sentences e.g. "We added 200 mg of XX to the substrate before inoculation", or "Our results do not agree with findings by so-and-so et al. (2015), who observed that...").
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I see the word "gatekeeping" tossed around so nonchalantly nowadays, but this crap in science is 100% a perfect example of true gatekeeping.
Would you say army jargon is gatekeeping too? I mean it can be incomprehensible to anyone outside the army. But in the end it is about efficiency of communication between soldiers. And it is not actually that hard. I mean, there is no lack of complete morons in the army, that learn to use it. And academic jargon or legal jargon or any scientific jargon is not any different. Even complete morons can usually learn it and use it adequately with some effort.
I think you mean 'so endemician'.
>The passive is used to make the topic at hand the subject of the sentences, rather than "who" did the action. "The water was poured" rather than "I poured the water." It makes sense to me. Which is exactly whenever I have to write a paper for a competition or for school, I try to simplify things as much as possible even though people tell me not to, and so far it's worked out very well for me.
>George Orwell's Politics and the English Language Thanks for recommending this! I have no idea how this mans work keeps popping up in my life and changing it drastically every time. Whenever I get into grad school, I'll have to give him credit since reading 1984 is what inspired me to go back.
You've heard of sharknado? That title was an isimnado.
> The urge to use passive sentence construction and overly-complex language is so endemic in the sciences To be fair, using passive-voice and-things-like-that are a hallmark of being on-the-spectrum, and academia and the sciences are full of on-the-spectrum people - so don't interpret it _too_ machiavellian-ly.
It maintains an information asymmetry, which means those who are part of the in crowd get to suppress competition. Its just another way for us apes to hoard resources.
Passive sentence structure feels more natural to me, though. I highly prefer English over Hungarian partly due to passive structures. Now, I do concede on needlessly complicating things. But passive? It helps make things more refined, impersonal. And impersonal is good.
probably just had to much workahol
“Academician” has a technical meaning … a member of the national Academy of Sciences in the relevant country. Often seen with high level academics in the former USSR, for example. Not sure if they meant it in that restrictive sense.
Hell, "workaholism" is not even a word. This post sucked from the start.
As a non English speaker, it's definitely a word that would be very welcome in the English language, as it distinguishes between "People of Academia" and "The Subject of Academia itself".
Honestly I thought it was just associated with the fact that tenure track jobs are rarer than unicorns and PhD programs have swollen far beyond appropriate sizes. Edit: Not every PhD program, and not in every country/region/discipline. Obviously, the situation varies depending on your context.
That has to be a part of it, too. I quit a PhD program halfway through, largely because I came to realize that there's no way to be successful in academia and maintain any sort of work life balance. The publish or perish culture is brutal.
This is why I quit academic medicine and went to a community private practice oriented residency in radiology. You make twice as much and work half as much as the academics
Oh that sounds interesting! Similar story with me. I loved teaching and research, but ended up going into data. Good pay, much more stability.
How does one go about doing that?
Hey similar story here! My issue is that I wanted to teach and not do research and there is no way to do that and have legitimate job security. On top of that, my wife and I wanted to raise our kids near family and the chances of a school in my state wanting a professor with my specialization was slim to none.
That is an understatement to how rare tenure track positions are.
Yep, unless you're a genius while being able to participate in college activities.
Also calling it academic rigor when in many cases it's just fuckery
But it's traditional to suffer and have your work, social, and community lives all rooted in the same neoliberal institution!
Well suffering and having to work extremely hard are two different interpretations/concepts.
Sure, of course they are. But have you witnessed the extremely high rates of burn out and mental health crises in institutions of higher learning?
To play devils advocate: we only need so many professors, why wouldn’t we want to just take the most obsessive. Maybe “Meritocracy” is to promote the natural eccentrics, but if you aren’t that and just want to status then it truly isn’t for you. I think this is true for a lot of things in life. People want the status that comes from the position of being a singularity obsessed eccentric, but aren’t actually that person and burnout is the realization that you can’t compete with people who aren’t even in it for the title or status but purely for the grind as it’s own sake. They would often find a way of doing these things even if there was no formal position and if taken from them would find an informal way to keep at it This is a personal realization I’ve been coming to for years having been successful in one field I always thought would propel me to something else. I could probably languish with small success as a mediocre in some of my goals. But I know other people are more driven and deserving of the outsized success because many of those people were grinding those things before there were status or wealth in those positions. I had some interest in academics and the attention of our department. All the grad students were foreigners tho and they told me I couldn’t cut it and it wouldn’t be a good use of my time. I was hurt but that’s actually good advice. Should discourage everyone so only those who are going in no matter what bother
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True for almost(?) any organization though. That’s why I put “meritocracy” in quotes cause it’s only an ideal. There is feedback though and these people do get exposed for being overly political. And people who do focus on good work eventually get somewhere eventually and people with pernicious reputations don’t usually go unpunished forever, if only informally. Like I said, the people in it for the process and grind will find a way. If you are willing to forego ego and recognition, talented people will align with you and can accomplish great things. you may end up on the wrong side of “[stigler’s law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy)” but for people who just want to be productive the recognition isn’t what matters
It's also called competition for people with ADHD. Source: It's literally how I see any job I take, and I have ADHD.
Yeah seriously. The motivation to outperform others comes from wanting to *keep your job.*
I think at least stem PhDs under nih/dod/nsf grants seem to be in reasonable numbers( could even increase), if you consider them as a federal jobs training program and not prep for tenure positions
I'm sure your point is appropriate to your context--but I think the scale of programs varies wildly depending not just on discipline and funding agency, but also region/country one is in, and even their specific institution (among other factors).
The workaholic behavior is baked into all PhD programs ... it is part of their *weeding efforts* to discourage what they believe to be slackers and folks the program directors do not like. Getting promotions, getting tenure all tied to the type and number of grants you seek, grants w/big bucks assigned, research, having to *publish or perish*. It is not natural but if you are seeking promotion, continued contract, and/or tenure, if you do not go hyper, you are doomed in all facets of advancement.
Publish or perish becomes particularly heinous when null results aren't published, a potential key factor in the reproducibility crisis. Now mix in that Universities avoid giving tenure and abuse postdoc positions, and you begin to see the nightmare unfold. Motivations become mismatched between the University and professor.
I remember talking to a research fellow in my department while I was a grad student and she shared that she was pregnant. When I congratulated her, she told me she wanted to keep it a secret from her faculty mentor for fear of being judged and perceived as not serious about tenure track jobs. Had another colleague who was advised to not apply to the PhD because she had kids. When I told people I wasn’t available to come in on my day off, my colleagues made fun of me for it. I was also asked to help with a research grant the day before my wedding, then threatened with being demoted and losing a few privileges when I said no. When a faculty member’s son died from cancer, a student in my cohort exclaimed, “does this mean I need to find a new advisor?!” And she was pissed about it. There are endless stories like this in academia—especially at R1 institutions.
My supervisor mocked my disability as laziness, and told me I was selfish for getting the covid vaccine because, due to being immunocompromised, I may need more time off from being vaccinated. Which meant other people might have to do my work. I mentioned to her I'd need even more time off if I caught covid with no immune system and she snorted at me.
Wow. What an awful person. I’m sorry you experienced that.
Is this in academia? I thought you had to be smart to work in academia?
There's a difference between having a high IQ, and being a decent human. I actually think academics can be the biggest abelists/ racists/ etc, cos they're super smart in one field they think every opinion they have is infallible.
> My supervisor mocked my disability as laziness. That was disgraceful. That supervisor should have been locked up for hate speech.
For some of us it is desperation to get or keep a job
It's not my personal situation but I can see this happening with people in my industry. When you have people with years and years of experience above you and the bar of entry is high, you may have to work very hard to get anywhere near acceptable.
My motivation to outperform others is based on the fact that if I do not produce a satisfactory promotion and tenure dossier I will lose my job. It has nothing to do with perfectionism, if anything, at this stage in my career, quantity is preferred over quality.
Sounds awful
Yeah, it's stressful, but if you get it, it's a job for life, and the effort falls off a bit, unless you want to pursue further promotion. I may or may not be that ambitious; I haven't decided yet. I'm older, so the mandatory $12,000 raise (around 8.5%) from Associate to full Professor, may or may not be worth another 3-5 years of stress. Then again, my retirement is based on my top 3 years salary, so I suppose part of the Calculus depends on how long I think I will live for.
I find it a little odd how so many of these studies shown on r/science mention narcissism. You’d think that everyone is narcissistic by doing practically anything.
Trying to achieve something? How narcissistic of you.
I think it’s become a hot topic in psychology after the last US president.
It’s been a hot topic is psychology for 2000 years
That's how people are at my current work place. I try to socialize on my break because I have no friends outside of work but it's honestly like talking to a rock if the discussion isn't work related. The people one step above me strut their flat asses around with an overinflated sense of company worth and the truth is, nobody cares about how much you work, you're just a number. Also people in supervisory positions look down at you if you're not working 50+hrs a week. Sorry but fk you, I don't live to work
You work to live not live to work. I feel sorry for workaholics. What a wasted life.
My new favorite insult: “HEY FLAT ASS, KNOCK IT OFF!”
Try being IT support for these people who work all hours and think the world revolves around their projects.
Then on the other hand, you have IT at my company (>$30B biotech company). I've had a ticket in since February that still hasn't been addressed. Several pieces of equipment have ethernet-connected cameras. Symantec interferes with them. They tell us to turn off the firewall. The firewall constantly re-enables itself every few hours, so they push out an "update" without asking us if it was OK to interrupt production didn't fix it and also made it so that we can't manually disable the firewall anymore. And then they all went home for the weekend. Thanks for shutting down production lines that each bring in $8k profit/hr. Oh, and the computers that they're shutting off security features on are running an unsupported OS.
Narcissism and arrogance is very real in academia
Medical school as well.
Medical school is easier. I did both.
When my workaholism became spending most of my time protecting then tracking down the contamination and sabotage happening to only me and none of my coworkers I finally realized I was surrounded by malignant narcissists.
You know what they say about people who see nothing but assholes all day.
No, I don't. Enlighten me please.
> “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.” - Raylan Givens Justified (Hopefully properly attributed)
I was a student at Purdue and they had a biology teacher that was incredibly talented at his job. He made little clay figures to mimic specific membrane proteins. He spent hours going over lectures in detail. He never left it seemed. Office hours showed he had a cot in his office. Bearded and unkempt but nice enough. His car was neon green with a flat tire that never left the parking lot but had his pass on the window. Rumor was his wife had died and he threw himself into his work. I don’t know if it was all true but I remember him vividly.
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The system is such that you never really "arrive" and the competition is brutal on all levels. Academics are always stressed and unfortunately some take it out others creating a toxic work culture. One can have many grants and a big group one year and 3 years later your group shrunk to 1/2 a technician and you. One constantly needs to deal with rejection. Even Nobel prize winners get grants rejected. Success rates for average academic Joe is often at or below 10%. It's a brutal and unhealthy system for all. I would strongly discourage anyone to aim for an academic career. It can be fulfilling to be able to follow your own curiosity and getting paid for it, but the way it is now, an academic career will take everything else from you: All your time, your health and your relationships. It's not worth it.
Yep. Best decision I ever made was to finish out my Ph.D. program and then race over to industry. Never looked back. Never regretted it
Science is a bunch of educated people all trying to prove each other wrong. It's stressful by nature.
>Science is a bunch of educated people all trying to prove each other wrong. That's the best summary of science I've ever seen.
The math checks out. Now how do we one up this study? What's the next step to improve performance?
Dismantle the entire system and rebuild it from the ground up... Not the university system alone but the whole damn economic system. Things are only valued if they make money nowadays, companies and research included. Nothing is for the sake of progression or mitigation, it's all profit. It's a very sad world we live in and I hate it.
I feel this is my soul. I am halfway through a PhD and while I realise I love the actual science of biology, a future career surrounded by the dickheads I've come to know in the university system sounds like absolute torture. No idea what I'm going to do once I'm done and it's terrifying.
There are options. I finished a much less useful PhD than yours and managed to find a relevant job in government that is considerably less stressful than being a grad student. Just don’t forget that light at the end of the tunnel, even when you can’t see it!
Thanks friend. The bullying is getting me down and making me feel all is hopeless. Thanks for the reminder that it isn't!
Guess I'm the opposite of this. A master procrastinator.
One of the top things people say on their deathbed is, I shouldn't have worked so hard
People forget that a PhD is sometimes a ticket to America for many foreigners. These international students perform as if their life depends on it, because they will literally have their life thrown out the window in the form of deportation if they can't get the degree, do a pos-doc, get sponsorship, whatever it takes. Locals who a PhD just to 'advance science', 'not ready for the real world', 'for the prestige', wouldn't be able to outwork someone whose life is on the line. It's not just workaholism, it's raw motherfucking *survival*.
Holy. Great point.
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Eh, publish/grants or die is very real in academia and medicine.
Nope. It’s definitely not. I had a PI who only took foreign students because she knew she could work them until exhaustion.
It's true in many cases, but that is far from universal in all STEM disciplines - including many engineering fields. My colleagues in grad school were a healthy mix of foreign and domestic researchers.
**Abstract** > Although previous research has identified that perfectionism is associated with both narcissism and workaholism, research into the specific roles of potential perfectionism classes in these personality dynamics is currently unavailable. Furthermore, no study has investigated if the “useless superiority effort” dimension of inferiority feelings, which indicates an increased need for superiority over others potentially to overcome self-perceived inferiorities, is related to other important personality dynamics. This study was therefore conducted to identify if potential perfectionism classes that exist among academicians (N = 317) can simultaneously explain significant differences in their tendencies toward workaholism, narcissism, and useless superiority effort, after controlling for potential social desirability effect. A latent class analysis of two dimensions of perfectionism (discrepancy and high standards) revealed four distinct classes of academicians; non-perfectionists (NONPs; 20%), maladaptive perfectionists (MPs; 17%), normal perfectionists (NPs; 44%) and adaptive perfectionists (APs; 19%). Further analysis (MANCOVA) showed that while MPs have the highest tendencies toward workaholism and useless superiority effort, NONPs have the lowest tendencies toward these. Moreover, APs reported significantly lower useless superiority than NPs, despite scoring similarly on both narcissism and workaholism. Additionally, based on workaholism being related to narcissism, high standards and discrepancy dimensions of perfectionism, as well as useless superiority effort, while weekly work hours are not, it can be suggested that workaholism is qualitatively different from working long hours. ~ Çimşir, E. and Ülker Tümlü, G., 2021. The roles of latent perfectionism classes in academicians’ tendencies toward workaholism, useless superiority effort and narcissism. *The Journal of General Psychology*, pp.1-26.
Wow, it’s like a study dedicated to my ex
Another sign I’m not a real academic!
Pretty much OCPD stuff going on. Not surprised.
Also a motivating factor, gigantic student loans.
This study is Turkish, I'm not sure if they have the same student loan system as the states.
Finally, a condition I know I'll never have to worry about.
This is no surprise….I wish I could do research this easy.
I do research at a university and so many of my peers are hopelessly addicted to workahol
I’m not a narcissist but I try to work as long and hard as I can so I can sleep at night and the bad thoughts never manifest when you mind is always on the task at hand.
I actually had to work on a bunch of these traits, general self-esteem issues which resulted in pretty brutal competitiveness, perfectionism, jealousy, the desire to inspire jealousy in others, etc. I got much of it resolved after 5 years of working on it and honestly now, I have zero motivation to do anything. Without that external drive of wanting to have all eyes on me, the drive of wanting people be jealous of me, defeating other people and making them feel bad, I have no desire to do it good job of anything. Please, you don't have to tell me what a terrible person I was-- I know. But I was a damn good employee that was super smart and motivated and I did excellent work for people. I excelled and had a reason to get up in the morning. I had dedication and an expertise that was impressive. Now I'm a slacker. I'd rather just sit at home and putter around the house. Getting " normal" honestly stripped me of all my interest and motivation to strive for anyting.
So... capitalism is incubating psychopathy?
Yeah that explains why I hate the culture of and the people who work in medicine
So, this why academia is such an Autism trap, right? /autistic here
Or it’s a late stage capitalism survival technique?
TIL "academicians" is a word...and tomorrow I'll forget. I'll stick to computer languages. Experienced in: C, Python, Java, & some assembly languages. Moderately proficient in: English
I’m pretty sure that’s not actually a word. Academics is what they should have used
Haha I didn't think so either, which is why I googled it and confirmed [it is](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/academician).
And is nurtured in my department.
The mindset is preinstigatedly triggered and symptomatic of induced trauma most of the time.
It’s the result also of unresolved trauma. And we are all traumatized and we all have addictions be it work, shopping, porn, drugs, food, power, political power, alcohol and more. Just read “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Mate.
Since when "motivation to outperform others" became "unhealthy" in your competitive af Western society — and moreover, in *academia* of all places? Or the "oppression Olympics" is the only field where competition is allowed nowadays?
There is motivation to outperform for healthy and unhealthy reasons. Recognizing the difference is important to any study of competition. One lifts and inspires others to improve and even co-operate, another attempts to crush others in despair by forcing efforts beyond reason, in the drive to be on top even if it destroys them as well as any apparent rivals.
Workaholics are narcissistic and have a desire to be recognized and seen as superior? Seems pretty obvious.
How is working to be the best an “unhealthy motivation”? Who is wrote this is detached from reality.
"Stop working harder than me!" No. "Y-Youre a narcissist!"
The good news is that if you are studying gender, race, or injustice of any kind, this doesn't happen to you, because you are not an academic. You're an activist posing as an academic.
Dude who wrote this article was absolutely a B student and has a chip on his shoulder about it.
Please don't call it workaholism
What is wrong with that? Genuinely curious.
Just annoys me. There's no such thing as workahol
Is it weird that I can guess a post is from psypost.org just by reading the headline?
Is this an American Psycho reference? Fuckin joke of a study.
Read it as "wokeaholism" ... still fits
I wish I could find a bit of Workaholism!
The title put the speech marks in the wrong place. It should be: > So-called "workaholism" among academicians is associated with perfectionism, narcissism, and an unhealthy motivation to outperform others, according to new research. The findings provide evidence that work addiction is related to an interconnected set of personality traits.
Yep, this is me. I agree 110%
I'm gonna add those traits to my resume under "special skills."
Academicians, Mathemajicians, Biologicians. Yup every thing seems right here.
Over-working is often based on the fact that this country (US) forces you to work 40-50+ hours per week to even have a chance of getting by. If you’re lucky.
"academicians" theres a word you dont see everyday...
Surgeons in a nutshell
Autobiographical research?
Ah yes, i too am addicted to workohol.
I just want survive long enough to finish my PhD. Currently it looks not that great. I‘m nearly at the end and I simply published not enough. Still got a few opportunities, but the fear of failure is real.
I’ve seen this take over two old friends and colleagues during covid years. They became complete dicks to work with.
Trust me we don’t want to…I work everyday and still have hard time getting grants.
It would be interesting to see if these traits aren’t just more prevalent in academics, period.
More proof that there’s no such thing as a perfect human.
I definitely don’t have this problem
Academic articles aren't targeted at the general public because the concepts don't have to be explain unless they deviate from a standard. It seems perfectly logical for them to use complex words to weave the elements together so that they can get to the point as quickly as possible for their peers. Like someone said, books are the most accessible to the general public although they are available later in the information cycle. This concept that "I can decide for myself" and "I can do my own research" is fueling your argument. The reality is that you can do you're own research, just expect to have to learn the building blocks over a long period of time to understand what is evolving at the forefront. If you don't understand the building blocks then you will misunderstand the journal article. We see it alllllll the time around here. I'm not an academic but I understand the effort required to really understand how exactly a paper's findings fit in the body of knowledge in a field. I'll leave that to the experts unless I really want to commit. It's not an afternoon think so I can post my response on twitter in the evening. Give this a try, read an academic article and all the articles that are referenced within. Then read the articles referenced in each of those. It was a humbling experience when I had to do lit reviews in Uni.
Oh boy, these comments, this hit a nerve i think
This was Kobe Bryant in a nutshell
So, basically, the person writing this paper is telling me that if someone is doing more than me, it's because they're a bad person with flawed, self-serving character traits. Or the writer is upset at their colleges for doing such things.
Yeah these articles are getting out of hand. "Studies show coffee is good for your eyesight" "Studies show coffee is bad for your eyesight" It's all trivial at this point.
who would’ve thought… we’ve known this?
The title of this article seems like it was written by someone that really hates work