You know how, when you’re listening to or reading
something, you have a flash of “Why didn’t I think of that?” Listening to NPR last week was a series of
those moments. I listened to shows about
Title IX and how girls are more involved in sports at a young age, but that
interest wanes later in the face of the hyper-masculinization of professional
sports; how sports cost so much for kids that it is not the great equalizer of
race and class that we might have imagined; and how cats have one paw in the
household and three out in the wild. I
had Researcher Envy. Why didn’t I choose
to be a sociologist with sports as my focus?
How cool would that be now, with sports the epicenter of conversations
about race, class, and gender? Or maybe
I could have been an anthrozoologist, and know why Ozzie refuses to take naps,
Silent Bob is, well, silent, and Mama Cass pretends she’s Tony Hawk, zooming
across our furniture like she was performing in the X Games? Thus was the source of my envy. I love being an educator and educational researcher,
but let’s face it: education is simply
not as sexy as sociology and zoology.
There was another show that stood out: an interview
with Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/10/02/writing-science-pinker. He has a new book called The Sense of Style, and it’s about one of my favorite topics, good
writing. In the vein of Strunk and
White, Pinker is a minimalist, and says that writing is about the visual as
well as the lyrical. I have no issue
with either. He’s also down with splitting
infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions, which we can all be
thankful for. However, he went on to
pick on his fellow academics, accusing us of convoluted terminology, excess
verbiage, and all-around turgid prose. Touché,
my friend, touché. As I embark on an
exciting research project and counsel novice doctoral students about writing up
their research, I realize he has a point.
While I do believe that complex thought and theories may indeed require
equally complex writing (Habermas, to take one example), I understand the need
for clarity and brevity.
As a language aficionado from way back, I knew about
writing bullshit to sound as if I was smart (of course, many of my teachers
were onto me and those of my ilk. Mrs.
Parsons was famous for saying, “Yes, but what do dat mean?” whenever I or one
of my fellow Honors English students tried it).
Maybe some academics do that as well. Steven Pinker, an insider, is not about to let
us get away with bullshit.
Despite my loyalty to needing three diverse theories to
form a conceptual framework; to digging as deep and long as I can into
philosophy and research to frame a literature review; and of course,
triangulating my data, I have decided
that October is Haiku Month. I will dedicate
myself to writing, every day, a traditional version of a haiku: three lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and
then 5 syllables, to hopefully gain an appreciation for clarity and image over an
addiction to words with multiple syllables and meanings.
I invite you to join me.
Share your daily haiku on Facebook, Twitter, or write it in your journal.
Maybe the world will become a land of clarity and directness. And it doesn’t even have to be a haiku. Any poem format will do.
Here are mine so far, as of Oct. 5:
Oct.
1:
Rain
Finally rain. Dull
skies, puddles, damp, sweaty smells
glad plants, grumpy me
Oct.
2: Swans
Swan soundly asleep
orange beak tucked in feathers
partner nibbles fish.
Oct.
3: Reading
Fiction takes away
the blues. Handsome
detective
plus supernatural.
Oct. 4:
Loneliness
Nels out of town.
Should
I buy a new stove or fall
wardrobe? Maybe both.
Oct.
5: Sandwiches
Last BLT with
tomatoes from our garden?
Sun promises more.
