Dear Geist,

How can academic writers apply your advice to keep prose simple and direct? Many of us work with very narrow specializations that have their own terms and syntax. To simplify this language or define terms along the way would make many a thesis and dissertation longer and even harder to comprehend.

Dear Spinner,

The answer depends on your intended audience. If you’re preparing the paper to augment the body of work of other specialists and to get your degree, go ahead and use exclusive language. But if your years of research and writing may be of interest to more readers, why not write with them in mind? Your definitions of abstruse words and explanations of esoteric processes will become an integral part of the writing and will make your work accessible to interested non-specialists — a much larger audience. In fact, for the last twenty years or so, academic and scholarly presses have sought more publications aimed at lay audiences, to reach more readers and to bolster income. In our view, this opening-out of important new discoveries and understandings is good for everyone.