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Language crimes

2006-04-14 18:53:57.729054+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

In light of Eric's assertion about the purposes of higher education, I pass along Language Crimes: A Lesson in How Not to Write, Courtesy of the Professoriate:

Fed up, I resolved to find out just how low the state of academic writing had sunk. I could use the Internet to solicit the most egregious examples of awkward, jargon-clogged academic prose from all over the English-speaking world. And so the annual Bad Writing Contest was born.

The rules were simple: Entries should be a sentence or two from an actual published scholarly book or journal article. No translations into English allowed, and the entries had to be nonironic: We could hardly admit parodies in a field where unintentional self-parody was so rampant.

[ related topics: Books Writing Education ]

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