Anti-Climacus

UM, YEAH: From The Economist's Free Exchange blog. Not all of it is appropriate to theory (switching to calculus would be a fairly effective way of confusing people, but also a good way to not get published) or even political science as a whole, but still:

"There's a definite style to academic writing, at least in economics, that seems ponderous and awkward to journalists; at The Economist, where many of our economics writers have graduate degrees in the subject, we generally beat it out of the new staff with a cricket bat:

Never use one word where eight will do; even better if you can stick a few dependant clauses in there.

Using simple, anglo-saxon words makes you look simple.

Keep your readers interested in your sentences by refusing to tell them what is happening until the last few words. Do not rest until you have hunted down and exterminated all traces of the quaint old "subject, verb, object" style. Anyone struggling with this should read mystery novels in the original German until this becomes second nature.

Where possible, start off paragraphs with a thoroughly unnecessary observation, such as "When people are hungry, they usually seek to eat." Reference at least two papers proving same. Later, it will be necessary to prove mathematically that this is so.

Always remember that in an economics model, everyone is part of a pulsating emergent network of interactions. Thus, it is ridiculous to speak of people doing anything; things happen as a result of unseen economic forces. Therefore, unless it is absolutely impossible, every sentence should be phrased in passive voice.

If you come to a place where you think a semi-colon belongs, stop! Semi-colons are far too informal for an academic paper. Use a comma instead. The comma's understated elegance is appropriate for all settings.

If you are in danger of saying anything easily comprehensible, immediately switch to calculus.

A colleague who studied under a moderately famous economist passes on his explanation for the phenomenon: "Your peer reviewers will already be going to sleep. Don't give them any reason to wake up and look for something to criticise.""