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Academic gobbledygook and bad writing put educators in bad light

All four of the major Metro Manila broadsheets appeared to be in such good English behavior last week, with nary a serious grammar or usage infraction in their major stories. But I did come across three specimens of gobbledygook and outright bad writing clustered in the Education and Home section of one of the broadsheets, and I think they are instructive enough to be critiqued here. The stories where they come from all look like press releases, but I think that was no excuse for the broadsheet to print them as is—particularly because the bad English of the stories puts the prestigious educators and the prestigious education programs being publicized in such a bad, embarrassing light.

Let’s now look into those bad English specimens in the Philippine Star:

(1) Academic and corporate gobbledygook

1. Gobbledygooky, wordy construction. I’m sure that like me, many of those who read the first sentence of that lead passage are still scratching their heads what the prepositional phrase “to support the fostering of the myriad of fields of culture of research in South East Asia” really meant to say. This is because that gobbledygooky, extremely wordy construction just couldn’t seem to decide which of the four nouns it has needlessly lumped together is its true subject—is it “myriad,” “fields,” “culture,” or “research”? Not being a mind reader, I really can’t be sure, but I suspect that in plain and simple English, that true subject is simply “institutional research,” and all that needs to be said by that phrase is this: “to help foster the development of institutional research in South East Asia.” In other words, there’s absolutely no need to befuddle the readers with the highfalutin word “myriad” and the irrelevant images of “fields” and “culture.” I have a feeling that the writer obviously used these fancy words to impress the readers, but ended up confusing them instead.
2. Dizzying wordiness. In the first sentence of the third paragraph of that lead passage, the clause “SEAAIR aims to benefit, assist and advance research leading to improved understanding, planning and operations of institutions of post-secondary education” really goes all-out to give the readers a dizzying runaround with those serial verbs (“benefit,” “assist,” “advance”) and serial gerunds (“understanding,” “planning”). This time, though, I’m quite sure that most of those serial verbs and serial gerunds are nothing but showy academese-cum-corporatese meant to impress the readers, and that all the writer needed to say is this: “SEAAIR aims to promote research leading to improvements in post-secondary education.”
3. Obtuse language and redundant phrasing. In the second sentence of the third paragraph, the subordinate clause “that paves way for academicians, educators, researchers and practitioners in higher education to highlight their completed works and allow them to network and interact” suffers from obtuse figurative language (“paves the way” for “aims to provide”) and extreme redundancy (the needlessly enumerative “for academicians, educators, researchers and practitioners in higher education” for “higher education practitioners”).  

Here, then, is that lead passage shorn of its academese, corporatese, and excess verbiage:

“MANILA, Philippines -  To help foster the development of institutional research in South East Asia, De La Salle University-Dasmariñas (DLSU-D) is hosting the South East Asian Association for Institutional Research (SEAAIR) Conference 2010. Now on its 10th year, SEAAIR will be held on Oct. 19-21 at the Summit Ridge Hotel & Promenade, Tagaytay City.

“This annual conference has been held in various universities across South East Asia (Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia) over the past nine years.

“Themed ‘Towards Global-ASEAN Institutional Research Strategic Alliances,’ SEAAIR aims to promote research leading to improvements in post-secondary education. The annual conference, which is SEAAIR’s main activity, aims to provide an opportunity for higher education practitioners to highlight their works as well as to network and interact.”

This is 121 words against the original 141, or a savings of 20 words—aside, of course, from being much more readable than the original passage.

(2) Bad, ill-advised writing

I daresay that the above lead passage is bad, ill-advised writing—one that shouldn’t have been allowed to go to print without being edited ruthlessly.

Firstly, it is illogical to say that the term “globalization” has become synonymous with success; the last I heard, “globalization” still meant “the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets,” a process that has benefited some strong, advantaged countries but has proven ruinous to weak, disadvantaged ones. In short, “globalization”—although beneficial to world trade in many ways—just isn’t and can’t be automatically synonymous with success.

Secondly, the second sentence of the first paragraph is not only lame and needless but also suffers from a grammatical and semantic disconnect from both the preceding sentence and the one that follows it. There simply is no logical basis for that sentence to be there at all.

Thirdly, the third sentence of the first paragraph also suffers from a similar grammatical and semantic disconnect. It says that “the 2010 Commonwealth Education Fair definitely taps into that current global movement” but is unable to make a clear, logical connection with the ideas in the two sentences that precede it. And precisely what does “tapping into that current global movement” mean? Frankly, I still don’t get it.

Finally, the whole second paragraph of the lead passage makes a wobbly but ultimately futile attempt to connect to the first paragraph, then goes to develop other ideas unrelated to the thesis of the lead paragraph. In short, there is no logical continuity to the entire passage; it’s an obvious failed attempt to featurize the story.

So, if I were that broadsheet’s section editor, I would have boiled down that story this way for clarity’s sake:

“MANILA, Philippines—To help develop and expand the global education market in the Philippines, the 2010 Commonwealth Education Fair will be held consecutively in three cities in the country in November—Cebu City on Nov. 14, Davao City on Nov. 16, and Manila on Nov. 18.

“Began last year, this year’s Commonwealth Education Fair is being undertaken by the following partner organizations: The British Council, Austrade, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and the Singapore Tourism Board. It will once again see the participation of various academic institutions from Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.”

(3) Use of vacuous, unwarranted statements to featurize a story

As in Item 2 above, this is another ill-advised and ineffectual attempt to featurize a story, one that uses a couple of evidently doubtful and unwarranted statements—and both worn-out clichés at that—to start it off.

True, it’s traditional wisdom to say that teaching is a noble profession, but the sweeping claim that “the teaching profession is considered the noblest and most admirable of all” is not only a ridiculous stretch but is semantically questionable as well. Its veracity is also vulnerable to this immediate challenge: Who considered teaching “the noblest and most admirable of all” the professions? The writer of the story? The Meralco Development Center? And if so, by what authority have they said so? And by publishing that statement as is, does the newspaper itself concur with that view?

The second sentence, “The intellectual and moral fiber of a nation is woven by the sacrifices and passion of a teacher,” is another blatant exaggeration that shouldn’t have seen print at all. It should be clear to anyone that the weaving of “the intellectual and moral fiber of a nation” is made possible not only by the sacrifices and passion of teachers—much less, as that sentence claims, by a single teacher—but by the efforts of so many people and so many social institutions. That statement therefore falls flat on its face and ruins the story altogether.

The story would have been much better off had the writer or that paper’s section editor just mercifully knocked off those two offending sentences (which are worn-out clichés anyway). Look:

“MANILA, Philippines – In recognition of the value of the teaching profession, the Meralco Development Center (MMLDC) conducts its annual Educators’ Forum, a gathering of teachers from partner divisions of the Department of Education.”

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