Language Crimes: A Lesson in How Not to Write, Courtesy of the Professoriate

The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 1999
Denis Dutton

"Pick up an academic book, and there’s no reason to expect the writing to be graceful or elegant. Many factors attract people to the scholarly life, but an appealing prose style was never a requirement for the job.

"Having spent the past 23 years editing a scholarly journal, Philosophy and Literature, I have come to know many lucid and lively academic writers. But for every superb stylist there are a hundred whose writing is no better than adequate — or just plain awful."

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