Hi Jepsonclough
Museum attendance is at the centre of my own "comfort zone." Would love to hear more about your findings.

I don't recall saying I didn't like the sentence - my (non academic) husband didn't like "comfort zone" and so I was looking for thoughts on that specific term which I actually quite liked. Understandably one phrase out of context is difficult to judge but equally I didn't want to identify myself by more detail so I posted an approximation of the full sentence and then the comments moved away from my original question (including the term "clonkily").

Anyway having found about 204,000 references on google scholar I am going to leave comfort zone in and finish finding the twelve references that are in the paper anc not in the reference list and then I am going to down the bottle of Sauv blanc that is in the fridge and forget about research (at least until the morning)

I'm sorry JC; I genuinely thought you didn't like the sentence and wanted to change it. Here's why:
"...my husband (who has proof read it for typos etc) doesn't think that one of the phrases in the abstract is academic enough. I tend to agree with him but I can't think of an alternative."
To paraphrase: you don't think it is academic enough and you want to find an alternative. So, no, you didn't *literally* state that you didn't like it... but you can see how others might be given that impression.

There is also a reason for the comments moving away from your original question. Some judged "comfort zone" to be perfectly reasonable, and therefore looked for other things in the sentence that might make it seem less academic. Again, in an effort to help you. I'm sure nobody meant to make you feel like crap.

my brain aches (mince)

So it's been removed from it's comfort zone then, eh, sneaks?

:/ I do English and I'm used to my tutors saying such and such is inelegant, condensed, spraswling, frail ... and much worse. Of course they also say when I write a great phrase, a punchy sentence, and so on.

I thought clonkily sounded comic enough not to cause offence, and I was only referring to two words out of, I imagine, thousands.

Sorry to offend. I honestly thought it was a helpful suggestion, and that it was the "take them" impacting on the way one read "comfort zone". Obviously you disagree, and that's fine by me.

Hi JC.

Its lovely that the rest of the piece is academic enough, abstracts are a nightmare aren't they ?

I like comfort zone but if you're not comfortable with it ( sorry ;-) ) then... what about normative experience or experiential sphere / field / realm ?

Regards, Chuff

Me too :-)

Always good to meet a fellow English scholar Bleebles :) :)

It's not much of a change, and I probably know nothing about it, but I'd suggest "zone of comfort". I think it sounds just that little bit more academic and a little less colloquial.