Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [251]
“You”: Pro and Con
Proceed with caution. Using “you” is a fairly assertive gesture. Many readers will be annoyed, for example, by a paper about advertising that states, “When you read about a sale at the mall, you know it’s hard to resist.” Most readers resent having a writer airily making assumptions about them or telling them what to do. Some rhetorical situations, however, call for the use of “you.” Textbooks, for example, use “you” frequently because it creates a more direct relationship between authors and readers. Yet, even in appropriate situations, directly addressing readers as “you” may alienate them by ascribing to them attitudes and needs they may not have.
The conventional argument for using the first and second person is that “I” and “you” are personal and engage readers. It is not necessarily the case, however, that the third person is therefore impersonal. Just as film directors put their stamps on films by the way they organize the images, move among camera viewpoints, and orchestrate the sound tracks, so writers, even when writing in the third person, have a wide variety of resources at their disposal for making the writing more personal and accessible for their audiences. See, for example, the discussion of the passive voice in Chapter 18.
Jargon
Many people assume that all jargon—the specialized vocabulary of a particular group—is bad: pretentious language designed to make most readers feel inferior. Many writing textbooks attack jargon in similar terms, calling it either polysyllabic balderdash or a specialized, gate-keeping language designed by an in-group to keep others out.
Yet, in many academic contexts, jargon is downright essential. It is conceptual shorthand, a technical vocabulary that allows the members of a group (or a discipline) to converse with one another more clearly and efficiently. Certain words that may seem odd to outsiders in fact function as connective tissue for a way of thought shared by insiders.
The following sentence, for example, although full of botanical jargon, is also admirably cogent:
In angiosperm reproduction, if the number of pollen grains deposited on the stigma exceeds the number of ovules in the ovary, then pollen tubes may compete for access to ovules, which results in fertilization by the fastest growing pollen tubes.
We would label this use of jargon acceptable because it is written, clearly, by insiders for fellow insiders. It might not be acceptable language for an article intended for readers who are not botanists, or at least not scientists.
The problem with jargon comes when this insiders’ language is directed at outsiders as well. The language of contracts offers a prime example of such jargon at work:
The Author hereby indemnifies and agrees to hold the Publisher, its licensees, and any seller of the Work harmless from any liability, damage, cost, and expense, including reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of settlement, for or in connection with any claim, action, or proceeding inconsistent with the Author’s warranties or representations herein, or based upon or arising out of any contribution of the Author to the Work.
Run for the lawyer! What does it mean to “hold the Publisher … harmless”? To what do “the Author’s warranties or representations” refer? What exactly is the author being asked to do here—release the publisher from all possible lawsuits that the author might bring? We might label this use of jargon obfuscating; although it may aim at precision, it leaves most readers bewildered. Although nonprofessionals are asked to sign them, such documents are really written by lawyers for other lawyers.
As the botanical and legal examples suggest, the line between acceptable and obfuscating jargon has far more to do with the audience to whom the words are addressed than with the actual content of the language. Because most academic writing is addressed to insiders, students studying a particular area need