Hemingway, truth and icebergs

September's Ni/Yama of the Month is Satya, the Yama meaning "truth." 
"What is Satya? Being Truthful. Why be Satya? So that one's actions are spontaneously true or right."  Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, 2.36)

Truth plagues me as I write the applications for my academic job search. Obviously I'm not lying in my applications, so its not a question of fact versus fiction. What bothers me is "truth" in academic writing style.

The jargon that many academic authors use makes me crazy. Bigger words and longer sentences do not make writing easier to read. Using obscure adjectives does not make you smarter than your reader. No one really understands Poststructuralism, no matter what they say. But I find myself using that same type of writing to make my projects more "interesting" or more "intellectual."

Whether you call it academic writing, exaggeration, or just plain lies, it's gilding the lily. It's unnecessary. If I don't believe in my own research and teaching plans, extra adjectives and fancy theories won't deceive the hiring committees. W.C. Fields's advice to baffle with bull if you can't dazzle with brilliance falls flat here.

But I do believe in my plans, and I believe others would find them interesting as well. That is what I need to communicate, without actually communicating it. You don't say, "This is interesting because..." Instead, you describe what "it" is in a way that others will find interesting, because YOU alone can explain "it." But that explanation should also only be a small portion of it, even though it evokes the entire thing. This is basically Ernest Hemingway's Iceberg Theory from Death in the Afternoon:

                    "If a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about
                    he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing
                    truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though 
                    the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due
                    to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things 
                   because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing."

Icebergs are everywhere lately. Last week I read an article on how to stand out in the academic job search that praised "writing in the kind of iceberg-crisp prose you are likely to find at the start of each week's New Yorker-- sentences of no more than 15 words--with real verbs--and no jargon." In other words, write like Ernest Hemingway.

     1. Use short sentences - namely, declarative sentences.
     2. Use short paragraphs - more focus in each section.
     3. Use vigorous English - specifically active verbs.
     4. Be positive, not negative - say what something is, rather than what it isn't.

Heminway has long been one of my favorite writers. When my friends were nuts for Fitzgerald in high school, I was devouring Papa instead. A Moveable Feast is still one of my favorite books. Whatever you think of him personally, you have to admire his writing.

Ernest Heminway writing in Kenya, 1953

We don't think or act in long, flowery sentences. In my mind at least, the syntax is more like subject-verb-object or just subject-verb. Jargon isn't truthful, and the action of creating jargon certainly isn't truthful either. Jargon does not equal Satya, which makes writing jargon a yogic no-no.

In order to be the change I want to see happening and be truthful, I need to cut out the jargon and (cue irony) eschew obfuscation in my own writing. I can use a simpler, clearer writing style to express the truth of my own plans and my own anti-jargon values. Academic writing could certainly stand to take a few lessons from Hemingway, so it might as well start with me.

I'll let you know how the hiring committees respond to Hemingway and the icebergs.

Check out these resources for writing inspiration from Hemingway:
Ernest Hemingway on Writing by Larry W. Phillips
Ernest Hemingway's Top Five Tips for Writing Well
27 Secrets to Writing like Hemingway
Hemingway's advice on when to stop writing