We love our work very much.

We're work lovers to say it.

I'm Angela Duckworth.

I'm Stephen Dobner.

And you're listening to no stupid questions.

Today on the show, why is academic writing so bad?

Why don't we turn it into a mad lives?

All you have to do is drop down menus and fill in the blank.

Also, what does your perfect day look like and what's preventing you from having more

of them?

Sunny and 77 degrees today going up from a high of 76 yesterday.

Angela, we have a listener question from one David Bowling.

Here is my question, David writes, why is academic writing so bad?

Part of the answer, he writes, must be that the incentives make it bad.

That is to gain tenure and to get published in academic journals, one is rewarded for the

denseness of one's writing, not whether it can be easily understood.

Also, conciseness and clarity are not rewarded rather they are penalized.

Is conciseness a word?

I think conciseness is a word but it's not the most concisive words is it?

I was thinking it was a concision somehow.

I feel like we should be able to do it in fewer than three syllables.

Anyway, let's assume that conciseness is a word and move on.

...