On 29 May 2012 05:41, Ms. Anne Frazer <frazera(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
However, when I read your words, the essence of your
comments is clear in
that part of your message is couched in attacking good prose because it is
too difficult to read and understand. I remind myself that you don't mean to
engage in a call for the dumbing down of articles in the 'Wikipedia
Encyclopedia' when you suggest that they are too difficult to comprehend by
'the man in the street', (my phrase, and a commonly used one) by which I
mean the 'ordinary citizen', the 'ordinary person'; it is a much used
phrase
I sardonically use in tandem with an apology to women. But here I have
strayed from the clear and concise message I would like to be able to convey
to you; so back on track...
No, I think it's incorrect to assume "readable" is a euphemism for
"dumbed down". Frankly, many academics are terrible writers. Because
most people are terrible writers. Being in the Internet era helps
(because everyone writes all the time), but a lot of academics are in
fact much less comprehensible than they think they are. Popular
science writing is *hard*.
Steven - one idea that occurs to me is to give them a target audience:
e.g. an extremely smart twelve-year-old. "A kid who is very smart and
who is really interested, but knows *nothing*. Can you inform them?
Use all the wikilink cross-references they would need." This will be
easy to visualise because smart adults tend to previously have been
smart kids.
- d.