article of interest

[Michael Perelman]

If I recall correctly, Arthur Diamond once did a study of the Richard T. Ely
addresses, published in the American Economic Review, using one of those
computer-based measures of clarity.  He found a distinct downward movement
overtime as a language of economists became more and more opaque.

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Michael Yates wrote:
>
> >The current issue of Lingua Franca has an interesting article titled,"Is
> >Bad Writing Necessary."  On one side naturally is the bete noir of many
> >on these lists,  Judith Butler.  On the other is our dear friend and
> >list contributor, Katha Pollitt.
>
> Sometimes I think there's no excuse for bad writing, but on the other
> hand, it's not easy to write well, and very few people do. Katha's a
> poet and a fine prose stylist, but how many people can you say that
> about? Science writing is largely terrible - "hard" and "soft"
> sciences; who'd hold up the American Economic Review as anything but
> a negative example (and not just for its prose!)? Butler cut her
> teeth reading Hegel, for god's sake.
>
> Doug

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Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901