If there is another, more common, word that can be used, I would suggest using it. As an editor, when I am editing manuscripts where an author uses a highly uncommon/unfamiliar word, to me it gives the appearance that s/he either used a thesaurus or is trying to put on airs. You can write a professional sounding paper without being pompous.

If there is another, more common, word that can be used, I would suggest using it. As an editor, when I am editing manuscripts where an author uses a highly uncommon/unfamiliar word, to me it gives the appearance that s/he either used a thesaurus or is trying to put on airs. You can write a professional sounding paper without being pompous.

That is sound advice. Thnak you Marie.

I agree with Marie as using unfamiliar terms can cause readers to not continue reading if they are not familiar with these terms. As a result, your work has a limited readership albeit unintentionally. 

Best regards,

Debra

Would you use an infrequent word in an academic peer-reviewed paper?

I would rather use simple to understand frequent words (if they exist) due to the following reasons:

If there is no suitable simple words to replace the infrequent words, the author can operationally define the infrequent words in the manuscript to ease readers' understanding.  When there is a need to rephrase other words & no other simple words are available, perhaps we can use few simple words / phrase to substitute.

Dear Jacob, I write regularly in literary, fine arts and architecture journals. I am expected to use an elegant style, the proper "jargon" of each discipline, and the prose must be intelligent and pertinent, attractive and, if possible,  beautiful. That means using the best possible vocabulary, metaphors and other figurative language —especially in descriptions— and, since usually the texts are complex, the writing must be enticing and eloquent. Writing about art must be artful, and must lead the reader to improve his or her expression. Flat texts invite the reader to think flat. It should be a joy to write and to read texts that are good and also well written. Simplification of language means simplification of thought and, especially, the loss of words, meanings and complexity.

Our writing must not be arcane, but it must certainly be challenging. The world is complex, all disciplines are complex. I do not think we help our readers if we do not invite them to share that complexity. A good writer should aim at writing in such a way that it will inspire the reader to improve, to learn new words to expand his or her mind and think new things. Aiming at the lowest level of language is pushing the reader downward. The idea is not to create a language gap between those you know and use many words, and those who do not, but to close that gap by helping the reader to hone his or her language skills.

I will never forget the first time I read George Orwell's novel 1984. Every day the government would eliminate several words from the dictionary so that the people would have less and less words to convey their thoughts in a nuanced, specific  way. Orwell knew that thet less words you have, the less you can think or say. 

I do not agree with Marie when she says that writing elegant prose is putting on airs. Good writing is good writing. I do not think art theorist Rosalind Krauss puts on airs, or Giorgio Agamben, or Roberto Calasso, or Barbara Baert, or Louis Mumford, or Rem Koolhaas, or Umberto Eco, or John Berger, or Anthony Vidler, or Roger Bartra, or Octavio Paz, or Jean-Luc Nancy, or so many others. Should we not aspire to write as intelligently and beautifully as Umberto Eco in his splendid essays? 

Best regards, Lilliana

Thank you all! These are invaluable insights.

Lilliana, I could not agree more.

Moreover - modern English features a huge, very precise lexicon but simple grammar (as opposed to, for instance, Icelandic which features rich and complex grammar but a relatively small stock of available words ), and the whole point of English is degraded if precise words are not used. 

If the paper is intended for an Academic readership, there is no reason to degrade or somehow dumb down its language: any intelligent reader will look up any word they might be unfamiliar with, and might even be thankful to the author for having enhanced his or her vocabulary.

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Good language is precise language. If I had to pick literary inspirations, it would be Dante and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, both of whom used a simple, almost transparent language whose power derived from its very refusal to use the artifices of literature. Who has every written words that equal the terror of the inscription on the gates of hell?

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

se non etterne, e io etterno duro.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate

There is a problem that I encounter as a reviewer: esotericism – the use of a vocabulary that is confined to initiates, that gives a sense of membership of a community by excluding outsiders. Within subject disciplines, a vocabulary can build up that is opaque to the average reader. Often words and phrases are reproduced by authors not because they describe something precisely, but because they are a credential for membership of an academic elite. Not one person in twenty, I bet, who reports on an ROC curve area (or worse, and ROC area) can actually interpret the figure. But its presence means that you are 'talking the talk'. Researchers want to sound like authoritative speakers in their field so they learn to write the jargon. Or, in jargon, researchers authorise themselves by use of an esoteric sociolinguistic register. Yes, I can do this too.

I made one attempt to break out of the mould. I did a chapter on sex work in Kenya where I tried to integrate the language of science with the language of stigma (it uses the word 'whore') and the language of ethics and the language of statistics and data analysis. The purpose was to try to show that none of these languages was neutral, that they all had a part to play in the victimisation and marginalisation of sex workers. It's here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289376488_Descriptive_statistics_with_a_purpose_Sex_work_in_Kenya

It is not that I do not love language. I love its precision. In skilled hands, it is a bright-edged scalpel, a polished mirror. But the best technique is invisible. It is why Mozart is a finer composer than Beethoven, because with Beethoven we hear the effort of composition - indeed, the music is about the effort in a significant way – but with Mozart we hear the music itself. Indeed, I can think of only half a dozen occasions on which you can catch Mozart being a genius.

And finally, I thought I should add one of my favourite words : hapax.

And a challenge: who can get the word 'hapax' into a paper on a topic other than linguistics?

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Chapter Descriptive statistics with a purpose: Sex work in Kenya.

Dear Ronán, you have an important point here: the problem is bad writers who do not know when to use complex words or how to write very complex texts that seem to us "transparent", as Gabriel García Márquez's novels, though I would not compare literary prose to a peer-reviewed essay, which is supposed to be complex because, hopefully, it is advancing new knowledge and pushing us "to go where no one has gone before". It is not fair either to call "esoterism" the use of words you do not know. When I do not understand a word, I just look it up. Why are we willing to look up a name of a person in Wikipedia, but not a word? Words are as important as persons. 

Yes, the problem is people who have no talent for writing, who compose winding, ungraceful sentences, who have no idea of "diction", who repeat the same idea many times, who bore us to the death. Ronán, many researches read very little outside their narrow niche, and it is a basic truth that the more a person reads (different things, different authors, not just "raw data"), the better that person writes. If someone does not want to read Dante (not many people want to read the intricate allegories of the Divina Commedia), he or she can read good news magazines (the NY Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian, etc.), and  good science books, well written and expansive. There is no excuse: communication is of the essence: but "simple English", "simple Spanish" or "simple Italian" must be reserved for contracts, instructions on medication bottles, back panels of cereal boxes, or other texts that must be read by the general population of almost any age. "Simple English" should not be the language used in scientific journals of any kind because each discipline has its own vocabulary that is precise and useful. If you think you will not be understood and if you feel your reader will not go through the trouble of looking up a word, just add a definition in parentheses right after the "esoteric" word, so the reader may understand, especially if it is a very technical word. I think that is pretty easy.

Come on, dear Ronán, Dante is extremely complex! Dante wanted to be complex. That is not a good example of "transparency"! When I teach Dante to BA literature students, I have to guide their every step through the text until they get Dante's "manner". After a lot of suffering, the students become more willing to bear with the complexity. Then, and only then, they grasp the infinite beauty there is in Dante's convoluted expression. I am a Dante fan, but that took me quite a while... No wonder at one point in the Inferno Dante excuses his "brutta lingua" (ugly, complex language) by telling us that for such terrible scenes of suffering and punishment, he must use a likewise terrible language. The guy was a genius: he perfectly knew he was writing in a very new manner for a very new reader. :-)

Best regards, Lilliana