Academic writing is getting harder to read—the humanities most of all

Academics have lengthy been accused of jargon-filled writing that’s unattainable to grasp. A current cautionary story was that of Ally Louks, a researcher who set off a social media storm with an innocuous publish on X celebrating the completion of her PhD. If it was Ms Louks’s analysis matter (“olfactory ethics”—the politics of odor) that caught the eye of on-line critics, it was her verbose thesis summary that additional provoked their ire. In two weeks, the publish obtained greater than 21,000 retweets and 100m views.