Based on research by Erik Dane

• Traditional academic writing is dense and inaccessible.
• Writing for nonacademic audiences can help scholars bring life to their professional writing.
• Writing in plain English matters: Accessible language broadens the reach of research and generates social change.

Academic research is a powerful force.

It deepens understanding of daily life. It undergirds laws. And, in an era poisoned by “fake news,” it can provide a desperately needed barometer to gauge what’s real and what’s not.

No one would accuse the academy of taking such duties lightly, exactly. Academics hold their work to strict account, typically basing their utterances on empirical evidence, rigorous peer-review and conceptual precision. Little wonder that the media constantly seek interviews with them or opinion pieces buttressed by their research.

Why is it, then, that for many readers, academic writing is useless?

Pick up an academic journal without a PhD and try deciphering it. There may be original thinking and breakthroughs in there, but they’re mostly encoded in language that researchers seem to be using to communicate exclusively with each other. How many lay people use terms such as metacritical, taxonomic, hermeneutics or polysemy?

In an article published in, yes, an academic journal, but mercifully devoid of esoteric terms, former Rice Business Professor Erik Dane argues that traditional academic writing is obscuring the very arguments, theories and insights that researchers need to explain. Academese, he writes, is so larded with jargon that it dulls the impact of the ideas themselves.

Entrenched over generations, this lexicon favors appropriateness over clarity and linguistic formula over originality. Articles resemble each other, authors sound interchangeable and yet their words are comprehensible only to other academics. “The way academics write,” Dane says, “is rooted in institutional pressures that exact conformity in exchange for membership.”

To fulfill their public duty as intellectuals, Dane writes, researchers must venture beyond their own tribe.

Failure to do so means that important ideas – often generated with the help of taxpayer dollars – are trapped in an ivory tower inaccessible to the people who need new ideas the most: decision-makers, leaders, policy-writers and voters.

The first step? Try writing for a non-academic audience, Dane recommends. “Most researchers publish their work in peer-reviewed journals where there’s a rigid formula for style,” he notes. Pitching ideas to trade books, mainstream magazines and newspapers requires brushing up on brisk, everyday language and clearly connecting the dots.

Luckily, certain exercises can make clear writing easier. Creative writing, for example, can “trigger new associations and loosen assumptions about the nature of writing itself,” Dane writes. Switching from an expository to an imaginative mindset helps the writer call established norms into doubt and triggers a creative process.

Reading widely and beyond the scope of academic literature can also remind scholars of the full expressive range of English. “Across distinct forms of writing, from rhetorical rants to poems to graphic novels,” Dane says, “our language unfurls itself in remarkable cadences and combinations.” Imagine harnessing some of those to make a reader understand and care about finance, stem cell research or discrimination research.

By injecting personality, even wit, into their writing, Dane says, academics stand to gain relevance far beyond the academy. And maybe even within it: “My hunch is that articles that have a dash of ‘deviance’ will actually fare better within the peer-review process,” Dane writes. “As academics, we advance sequentially from one point to the next, constructing a chain of logic that props up the hypothesis while acknowledging any gaps left to be explored. But introducing some flair into the way we write will make our writing sound better. Making that transition from monotone to melodious can help us make our work more memorable too.”

The impact of any research, in the end, depends on whether it sticks in a reader’s mind. Writing with life to it can introduce an academic’s hard-won findings to broader audiences that can actually benefit and act on them.

“We often bemoan the fact that business practitioners don’t read what we publish,” Dane argues. “And in many fields there’s a sizeable gap between research and practice. The more engaging our writing … the better off we’ll all be from a societal point of view.”

In an era characterized by “fake news,” hyperconnectivity and unprecedented change, it’s more important than ever for those on the front lines of knowledge to report what they know. What a waste when the truths they struggled to unearth are buried again, in their own words.

Erik Dane is a former professor and was the Distinguished Associate Professor of Management (Organizational Behavior) at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

To learn more, please see: Dane, E. (2011). Changing the tune of academic writing: Muting cognitive entrenchment. Journal of Management Inquiry, 20(3), 332-336.

Rice’s Cohen House was the site of a celebratory occasion Oct. 4 as the Jones Graduate School of Business community gathered for the Rice Business Alumni Awards, which annually recognize alumni in six categories for outstanding achievements in their professional fields and exemplary leadership.

Recipients of these awards embody the school’s four pillars of alumni engagement: community, philanthropy, volunteering and lifelong learning. This means that when reviewing nominations, the selection committee took into special consideration those alumni who exemplify and consistently engage in supporting their communities in these areas.

Pictured, from left, are Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business; Eric Elfman ’95, Industry Excellence in Technology Award; Rob Royall ’84, Industry Excellence in Financial Services Award; Tanu Grewal ’05, Industry Excellence in Consumer Products Award; Eleanor Putnam-Farr, assistant professor of marketing at Rice Business; Sean Ferguson ’01, Industry Excellence in Nonprofit Award; and Alessandro Piazza, assistant professor of strategic management at Rice Business.

Award winners not pictured are Robert Gaudette ’01, Industry Excellence in Energy Award, and Robyn O’Brien ’98, Alumni Community Service Award.

The awards were established by the Jones Graduate School Alumni Association.

At Rice Business, we have exceptional part-time MBA programs thoughtfully designed for those who want to advance their careers without leaving their jobs. 

If you are a professional seeking to accelerate your career or are interested in learning more about Rice Business and the application process, contact Steve or an admissions recruiter today!

As part of the Rice Energy Finance Summit Nov. 1, Robert Kaplan, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, will conduct an hourlong conversation about the Texas economy, the energy industry and other timely economic issues.

The student-led, daylong summit at Rice Business’s McNair Hall is open to the public. Registration is $200. The conversation between Kaplan and Rodriguez will be livestreamed at www.youtube.com/c/ricebusiness/live.

What: Rice Energy Finance Summit on “Shifting Goalposts: Energy at the Nexus of Capital Discipline and Value Creation.”

Who: Robert Kaplan, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

When: 8:30-9:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 1.

Where: Rice University, McNair Hall’s Shell Auditorium, 6100 Main St. Parking is available in the Central Campus Garage. For directions, see http://business.rice.edu/directions-and-parking.

For the Rice Energy Finance Summit agenda and to register, visit https://business.rice.edu/rice-energy-finance-summit.

The Rice Energy Finance Summit is an annual conference promoting forward-looking discussions on the most relevant energy finance, investment and strategy topics affecting the global energy industry. The conference serves as a platform for senior executives, investors, advisers and policymakers to share their perspective with over 400 fellow energy industry professionals and Rice students, alumni, faculty and staff.

The conference’s strategic theme this year, “Shifting Goalposts: Energy at the Nexus of Capital Discipline and Value Creation,” aims to explore the linkages between the industry’s commitment to capital discipline and the imperative to generate sustainable returns for investors, all against a backdrop of changing business models, capital markets constraints, increasing private ownership and uncertain growth prospects.

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