Bad Writing in the Social Sciences

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2022

This text is but a murmur of revolt against all and any formats, and it shall maintain this whispering volume so as not to disturb the howling hounds of Academia. I aim to present these muffled spells in defence of fragility, for it is not wise to present such untamed beasts to clergymen without their restraints; lest they take them to the fire.

Social Sciences

Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie

(2) to extend established academic writing scholarship by introducing critical realism as a conceptual framework for justifying plural, democratized, multimodal, diverse and inclusive forms of academic writing; and (3) to develop a philosophy of change that lays a foundation for diversifying writing pedagogies. (p.1) In this way, she hopes to decolonise, democratize, and make socially just the university and its practices: to truly welcome diverse students and challenge the neoliberal orthodoxy that dominates our times. The book is divided into five (large) chapters, opening with a "Letter to My Reader" and closing with a "Signing Off" and "Afterword". We provide a brief chapter by chapter synopsis to give readers an idea of the arguments put forward, before addressing the strengths and limitations of the book in our review. Chapter by Chapter Synopsis Letter to My Reader Molinari's critical take on academic writing is reinforced by her "Letter to my Reader." Here, she addresses the reader directly, acknowledging that a year of a pandemic, working from home, and teaching in loungewear or at the kitchen table may have impacted writing, and, yet and still: "this is a serious book, it is an academic book and what makes it academic is the knowledge it deals with, the references it draws on, the research that has gone into it and my identity, my right to be a writer who is present in her text" (p.1). And, in this very open and welcoming voice, Molinari draws on the history of academia, socio-semiotic research, integrational linguistics, and studies in multimodal and visual thinking, to argue that writings themselves be reconceptualised more broadly. That dialogues, chronicles, manifestos, blogs, and comics be recognised as multimodal academic artifacts able to harness a wide range of epistemic affordances.

Companion to Reinventing Management Education, 2016