Hi guys,

I'm currently writing up and was hoping to guage some thoughts on the matter of the kind of language used to write up.

I was reading an article yesterday written by a colleague, and to be honest really thought it was written using such complicated language I'm positive he must have sat with a thesaurus when he wrote it. To be honest I felt like I needed a dictionary to be able to understand it. He's just passed his PhD, and this got me thinking... Do I need to write in this over-complicated manner?

I think my writing is quite good, and my supervisors and other colleagues seem to agree, but now I'm questioning it. I've started to over-analyse how other researchers in my area write and I don't know whether to change the style I'm comfortable with just to sound "more clever" by using big words.

What does everyone else think?

Thanks :-)

No, don't use big, complicated words if that's not your natural writing style. To some people this comes naturally, and fine for them, but if you need to go out of your way to write like this, don't do it. You'll just sound pretentious and like you're trying too hard. And I get suspicious when I read unnecessarily complicated language, that the author is trying to cover up a lack of substance/poor research. Write as you have been. Just write and follow your own style. 

Hi Jinkim, Yeah, personally, I think the use of lots of complicated words can come across as pretentious. I also think it can hault the flow of your writing: yes, it's wonderful to be succinct and expressive, but if your language is so obscure that readers have to stop and reach for a dictionary very couple of minutes, then I think that's distracting; although I do think the odd interesting unusual word is stimulating when used deftly (although I still don't really manage that in my work!). You could speak to your supervisor about it and see what they think - maybe the odd clever word would spice things up. Having said that, my supervisor is at the top of his feild and he writes in pretty much plain English - he doesn't use fancy words.

Good Luck (up)

I think it's so off-putting to pick up, for example, a journal article and see such complicated language used. In journals like these, I find myself reading sentences three or four times, just to try and work out what they actually mean! As long as you feel happy with your writing, as well as your supervisor, I don't think it's appropriate to try and change your style to make it more fancy.

Thanks guys,

I was feeling better after reading your responses, but then I went for cofee with some of my older PhD buddies and they started talking about philosophical matters... complication central. I think I need to eat a latin dictionary....