1. Academic Writing Rant
2. By Cipher
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4. I have a theory about Libraries.  Visit one and you will find 90% of it is filled with magnificently erected steaming piles of academic pyscho-babble.  Art.  Literature. Fiction.  All manner of subjects covered, some of it fine and wonderous.  A tiny portion of it actually useful.  But go down the Social Sciences Aisle, and you run into the mangled, tortured syntax of the modern liberal arts professor convinced only he/she knows the the path to true enlightenment.  And they wish to share it with us, the Great Unwashed.
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6. To properly construct a title for one of these monstrosities, you must cover all the bases:
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8. 1. In the first half of the title, list at least two unrelated disciplines.
9. 2. Seperate the first half of the title from the second with a colon.
10. 3. In the second half of the title, mention "A Multi-Disciplinary Approach."
11. 4. Make sure it is as removed from reality as possible.
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13. Real Life Examples:
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15. Criminal Belief Systems: An Integrated-Interactive Theory of Lifestyles  
16. ISBN: 9780275978204  
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18. Gendering Citizenship in Western Europe: New Challenges for Citizenship Research in a Cross-national Context  
19. ISBN:978184742237
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21. Queer Theory and Communication: From Disciplining Queers to Queering the Disciplines
22. ISBN: 9781560232766
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24. Social Gerontology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
25. ISBN: 9780205336258
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27. And even a book about how to write such nonsense:
28. Exploring Avenues to Interdisciplinary Research: From Cross- to Multi- to Interdisciplinarity  
29. ISBN: 9781904761686
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31. And way back in the dimly lit corner of the library, you'll find something else.  A row or two of the books that put us atop the food chain.  The works that seperate us from the ape.  The books that built the world we live in.
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33. This section, often poorly maintained, has tags on the rows:
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35. Science.  Engineering. Physics. Mathematics.
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37. These books are for the knuckle-dragging brutes who insist on constants. Unshaded truth.  Where the color gray exists only as a part of studies of non-spectral colors in the achromatic band of the electromagnetic spectrum.  They live in a world where 1 + 1 always = 2.  Not 2.5.  Not Giraffe. They do not consider how the numbers feel.  They worry not a whit about the self-esteem of an equation.  They seek Truth.  It is the work of their lives to provide us with the empirical proof of things.
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39. Academics, upon their next visit to the library, should at least glance over that way.  And thank their Upright-Walking God for having made the men and women who wrote those books...
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