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Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences New Edition

by Michael Billig (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 43 ratings
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Modern academia is increasingly competitive yet the writing style of social scientists is routinely poor and continues to deteriorate. Are social science postgraduates being taught to write poorly? What conditions adversely affect the way they write? And which linguistic features contribute towards this bad writing? Michael Billig's witty and entertaining book analyses these questions in a quest to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong with the way social scientists write. Using examples from diverse fields such as linguistics, sociology and experimental social psychology, Billig shows how technical terminology is regularly less precise than simpler language. He demonstrates that there are linguistic problems with the noun-based terminology that social scientists habitually use – 'reification' or 'nominalization' rather than the corresponding verbs 'reify' or 'nominalize'. According to Billig, social scientists not only use their terminology to exaggerate and to conceal, but also to promote themselves and their work.
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  1. ISBN-10
    1107676983
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1107676985
  3. Edition
    New
  4. Publisher
    Cambridge University Press
  5. Publication date
    June 20, 2013
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 0.61 x 9 inches
  8. Print length
    240 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Michael Billig makes important and novel arguments about the state of writing – and therefore the state of thinking – in the social sciences. This book presents detailed critiques of writings by a wide range of social scientists. Billig uses vivid examples to demonstrate the conditions in which bad writing is nurtured and to show its wider significance for academia and beyond. This is a highly entertaining read which had me laughing out loud at times."
Christine Griffin, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Bath

"A wonderful look at the academic world and the kind of writing it encourages. I especially enjoyed the chapters on mass publication, sociology, and experimental social psychology."
Tom Scheff, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

"If you are put off by the highly specialized, closed and boring technical prose that increasingly characterizes a good deal of contemporary social science, then Michael Billig shares your annoyance! A wise, informed and well-written account, showing just why so many social scientists write badly."
John Van Maanen, Erwin H. Schell Professor of Organization Studies, MIT Sloan School of Management

"Once again, Michael Billig has succeeded in challenging one of the characteristics of scholars’ writing in the social sciences which is usually taken for granted: the use of too much abstract jargon which mystifies and obfuscates the interpretation, reflection and explanation of our findings. In his brilliant, typically humorous but also cynical and accurate analysis of scholars’ narcissism, the author points to alternative ways of combining complex research with fundamental and necessary scholarly standards – while simultaneously making our work accessible to a broader public, in the spirit of true critical science."
Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Lancaster University

"Michael Billig is writing from the inside as a professor of social sciences at Loughborough University: he knows all the tricks and poses, and examines them with a mix of cool detachment, warm humour and suitably dense footnoting."
Gideon Haigh, 'Books of the Year', Spectator (Australia)

"[A] splendid book, which I’m going to make compulsory reading for anyone who crosses my path."
Martin Parker, Organization

"[Billig's] argument will interest most academics, not merely those in the social sciences … any self-reflective academic or writer will benefit from reading his accomplished study."
Luke Brunning, The Cambridge Humanities Review

"A highly respected researcher, Billig is well positioned to offer his critique … The book's apt, somewhat tongue-in-cheek illustrations cleverly prove Billig's claims … Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty."
C. E. O'Neill, Choice

"… a thought-provoking manifesto for good writing."
Helen Jones, Sociology

'You will be drawn into the book by amusement and curiosity despite the somewhat dry topic.' Eva Dietrich, University of Potsdam

Book Description

A humorous, clearly written scholarly analysis of what is going wrong with the way that social scientists write.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press; New edition (June 20, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1107676983
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1107676985
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.61 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 43 ratings

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Michael Billig

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
43 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

A Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars .... when the emperor has no clothes he may catch a cold....
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2013
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A very thought provoking, explosive book on academic language practices using the example of (social) sciences (other sciences aren't probably any better) and the tendency of some theorists to create languages of their own. Drawing on many examples, the author documents that far from being more precise or clear, such author-specific language obscures the subject at hand or even camouflages lack of content. Thus, in many instances the author shows that the emperor has indeed no clothes. But the book goes way beyond a mere critique of language. It probes into the "why" of such a vain practice as well as its consequences.As usual,M. Billig's argument draws on a multitude of sources from different disciplines and is extremely well documented and backed up . Also he explains complex ideas in a very clear language meaning that reading a book like this will help understand concepts and works of other sociologists better. But the latter is not apparent to interested readers. Therefore, if I were a student again, I would be extremely grateful to my professors for alerting me to works like this by including it as reading material in either one of the following classes:
Experimental psychology, Sociology of Knowledge,
Philosophy of Science, Linguistics, Seminars on the empiricism debate, Social History, Sociology of (research) bureaucracies, simple English writing classes to name just a few possibilities.
Another reason why I find it an ideal reader for an interesting seminar is that it raises so many questions that go way beyond its scope (see comment). And, it is primarily for the above reason that I wish this treatise a very wide circulation to help as many students as possible understand the workings of the discipline and get their priorities as to their own research right.
5 people found this helpful
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Ronald Fischer
4.0 out of 5 stars Useful book to reconsider your writing as an academic
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2017
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It was a good resource to think about one's writing as an academic. Having finished this book, I have started to change how I write articles, leading to what I hope are theoretically clearer, more accessible and more concise manuscripts. I would judge the overall message of the book as very important. At the same time, there are some sections that detail problems in other people's writing that became a bit repetitive and long. These sections are good to demonstrate some of the problems in action, but if you were on board with the general gist of the recommendations, they started to drag out the otherwise great book. Overall, a book that I would highly recommend to any academic wishing to improve his or her writing.
3 people found this helpful
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savvy consumer
5.0 out of 5 stars Academia In Yo Face!
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2014
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Okay, all I'm going to say is that this is a must read for anyone in graduate school or thinking about graduate school. It'll help you realize that many of the insecurities and doubts you experience while doing a PhD are normal. In criticizing academic writing, he also teaches you how to write as an academic. So you do risk becoming jaded, but if you read the critiques you'll also learn what is expected of you as a writer in Ivory Tower.
2 people found this helpful
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Czarniawska Barbara
5.0 out of 5 stars An obligatory reading
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2014
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An obligatory reading - for doctoral students in the social sciences, but most importantly, for their advisers! Self-criticism that hits the heart of our writing habits.
One person found this helpful
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Carol Paul
1.0 out of 5 stars Nonsense!
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2023
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This book was filled full of nonsense. I am surprised the author could get the front cover to shut with all of the bloated language! Do not purchase this book, unless you like disappointment.
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Erin
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
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Great book, right on!
One person found this helpful
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Leslie S.
2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing New in Learn to Write Badly
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2013
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After all of the attention this book received in the media, I bought it. I am disappointed. Although I found the overview of scholarly publishing interesting, the critique of writing itself is based on Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." If you know this essay, you do not need this book.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Italianist
5.0 out of 5 stars Hysterically funny and true
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2019
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I love this book. I can think of so many successful fellow academics to whom I should like to give it. It could equally well be titled Learn to write badly: how to succeed in the Humanities. A great scholar taking aim at pretension, want of style, self-importance. An absolute gem of a book.
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David Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Wildly underappreciated critique of academic writing
Reviewed in Australia on March 14, 2024
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Michael Billig's "Learn to Write Badly" is the most underappreciated and fascinating book I've read in at least two years. Many writers decry bad social science writing; Billig brilliantly and entertainingly dissects the incentives that created it.

Billig takes special aim at the big, obscure nouns that social science academics now almost automatically produce – terms like "postindustrializaton" and "massification". He half-jokingly names this process "nominalisation".

Billig argues that these big nouns actually erode exactly the linguistic precision that they claim to improve.

So why use them? The incentives are the key. Academic writers adopt a style full of nominalizations because that's what most fields now want, Billig says. And they want it because by minimising verbs, they can create reams of text which can make relatively weak claims about what people actually do, without actually showing the weakness of those claims. Using nouns for mysterious processes stripped of real actors is usually a cheat, but it's also a lot *safer*.

Billig wants social science academics to sharpen their language and their concepts by writing about actions that people take, rather than about disembodied and nominalised concepts.

"Write about people rather than things", he urges.

Information Research journal founder/editor Tom Wilson's review focuses on its description of the (unstoppable?) trend to inscrutable sub-sub-disciplinary languages:

"[I]f you are an academic, seeking to make a name for yourself, what better than to invent theoretical concepts with 'big' nouns, massification', 'postindustrializaton', 'habitualization', etc, stringing them together and then using their initial letters thereafter, so that the three concepts, first become one, 'postindustrial massification habitualization' and then, PMH. After that, PMH is yours, you've invented it, and others will adopt it (whether they know exactly what it means or not). You will also sprinkle it throughout your papers, making it perform grammatical functions that the phrase on its own could never perform, and further confusing your readers."

"Are things really this bad?" Wilson asks. "My conclusion, after reading Billig's evidence from social psychology, sociology, linguistics, a little from media studies, is that it really is this bad."

From another great review, in Inside Higher Education: "[Billig wants] to understand the purpose and enabling conditions of successful bad writing: people do not come into the world knowing how to be verbose and evasive ... there must be incentives to learn it."
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Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down
Reviewed in Canada on February 12, 2016
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Billig is a good-humoured insider, a seasoned social scientist. "No one is born with the ability to produce the convoluted sentences that academic social scientists regularly write. This bad writing is highly educated." Thus begins chapter 3. Echoing C.S. Lewis, Billig argues that anyone can learn to write convoluted jargon. Unfortunately, bad writing is an easier style to fake.

This book is actually hard to put down. I did not expect a book on writing to be so... readable--full of stories and humour. Already, after living with this book for a few days, my writing is improving. If this was required reading for every would-be scholar, the university would be a better place for wonder and love of learning.
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Willow Arune
1.0 out of 5 stars A delightful attack on standard academic writing. Obfiscating as ...
Reviewed in Canada on May 31, 2015
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A delightful attack on standard academic writing. Obfiscating as much as possible is a standard tactic not reserved to post-modernists.
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Gillian Moss
4.0 out of 5 stars Straight talking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2013
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A very originsal take on the discourse of scientific papers in Social Sciences. Very much a book for specialists but should be fascinating for those interested in finding a better way to write science. On the downside, it tends to become rather repetitive.
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