Andrew Gelman:
An anonymous reviewer wrote:
I appreciate informal writing styles as a means of increasing accessibility. However, the informality here seems to decrease accessibility – partly because of the assumed knowledge of the reader for concepts and terms, and also for its wandering style. Many concepts are introduced without explanation and are not clearly and decisively linked in developing a narrative argument. I think the prose and argumentation would be much stronger if ideas were introduced and developed more deliberately and not assuming insider knowledge of the reader.
Good point. I have an informal writing style and that often works well, even for technical papers. But sometimes an informal paper is harder to follow for readers without the background knowledge. Paradoxically, a more stilted style with lots of notation and many stops to make precise definitions, can be more readable for the less-than-expert audience.
via andrewgelman.com
My writing style is informal because I'm a little bit dumb and I don't know any better (Tim will be happy to confirm my point).
