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Banish These Words, 2014

By Karen Kelsky | September 26, 2014

Previously I told you to banish the words “unique” and “burgeoning.”

Here is a new set of painfully overused, excruciatingly tedious, annoyingly self-important, and frustratingly vacant words  to be banished in 2014:

Banish these adjectives:

real-world  (what does that mean, anyway?)

profound  (your topic/analysis/approach is far less profound than you believe)

crucial   (nothing we do in the academy is actually crucial. I’m sorry. It just isn’t.)

Banish this word in every form:

deep

deeply

deeper

deepen  (no.  Just no.  In particular, please, I beg you, don’t tell us how you’re going to “deepen your analysis.”)

Banish this word in every form:

nuance

nuanced

nuancing (yes, some of you, I’m sorry to say, make it a verb.)

For further elaboration, please see: Grad Student Grandiosity

Similar Posts:

  • Banish These Words, 2016 Edition
  • Adjectives Are Not Arguments, Part I
  • Another Teaching Statement Cliché: The Messiah- Narrative
  • My Dissertation on X Examines X
  • The Hash-Slinging Slasher

Filed Under: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student, Writing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Laura Servage says

    October 3, 2014 at 8:54 am

    You’re so bad ass Karen. This Grandiosity Rant made my day. Thanks. And thanks for continuing to offer your great advice.

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 3, 2014 at 8:56 am

      why, thank you!

      Reply
  2. Russ says

    October 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm

    Please consider adding “problematize” if it hasn’t made previous lists (and reaffirm the ban if it has! It won’t go away).

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 5, 2014 at 9:08 am

      you’re the second person to request this!

      Reply
  3. D says

    October 5, 2014 at 9:59 am

    I would suggest to add “novel” and to some extent “evironmentally friendly”. Unless is really a top journal. No, it’s not that novel. And if you don’t take into consideration the entire process, there’s a huge probability that whatever you do is not really environmentally friendly.

    Those two concepts burn into my retinas as “BS” when I read them.

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 6, 2014 at 8:15 am

      I despise “novel” but it only shows up in science stuff, so I’ve hesitated to banish it, since I wondered if it had special standing in those fields.

      Reply
      • D says

        October 7, 2014 at 5:00 pm

        mmmmm… not really. As a matter of fact some journals even request it not to be used in titles. And another argument… if it was not novel it wouldn’t be published. >_>

        Reply
  4. Kristie says

    October 9, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    My favorite ones? I hear them at every conference, many faculty meetings, then wind up on everyone’s CVs:

    1. Sustainability

    2. Beyond

    The latter makes my hair stand on end. “Beyond Communication” “Beyond Ethics”, or the best one ever, “Beyond Sustainability”.

    I’ve never heard a “Beyond” talk that is actually “novel”. Rant complete 😉

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 10, 2014 at 8:43 am

      lol–you are SO right—banish Beyond!

      Reply
  5. John says

    October 10, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    Is real-world entirely fair? I do theoretical computer science research and there is a distinction between algorithms that are actually used in practice and those that are theoretically valid but so complicated they can’t actually be coded (or at least probably won’t ever be). We usually distinguish the two by saying the former are used in “real-world applications” whereas the latter are “theoretical results.” Or should it still be banished?

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 13, 2014 at 7:39 am

      if it works in your field in a distinctive way, then of course you should use it. That’s not the issue among the vast majority of clients who just scatter it indiscriminately in their teaching statements.

      Reply
  6. Bacigalupe says

    October 14, 2014 at 7:10 pm

    Such a nuanced and crucial post, all stakeholders should read it now because it is a best practice, please contact me if you have deeper questions. ????

    Reply
  7. Kate says

    October 15, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    Ok, if a Teaching Statement should be one page, how long should a Teaching and Research Statement be…two pages? I find that the Research part is much longer because it requires more details not only future aims, but evidence of past experiences which make those aims likely to be achieved…

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 15, 2014 at 2:43 pm

      RSs in the humanities can be two pages; a combined TS/RS can thus be three pages in total.

      Reply
  8. Bacigalupe says

    October 17, 2014 at 6:11 am

    Now on a more serious note, I reallylove your columns!

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 17, 2014 at 10:37 am

      thanks! LOL-ed at your first comment!

      Reply
  9. Elizabeth says

    October 19, 2014 at 5:26 am

    Could you please add “unpack?” The overuse of that word drives me nuts! OK, the fact that this word even became a part of our popular lexicon in the first place drives me nuts! It comes across as one of those words that people use to sound cool, regardless of whether or not that was the intent.

    Reply
    • Anaïs says

      November 10, 2014 at 9:40 am

      Yes! Sounds like a therapeutic process to me. Which isn’t bad, but isn’t scholarly.

      Reply
    • Karen says

      November 10, 2014 at 10:02 pm

      I also loathe this word. But the word has to cross a threshold of overuse to make it into a “Banish” post, and “unpack” hasn’t quite hit that yet!

      Reply
      • Laura says

        May 3, 2015 at 6:55 pm

        Not too long ago I heard someone say they would “unpick the theoretical assumptions of… blah blah blah.” I guess “unpack” needed to be trumped?

        Reply
  10. Emily Johnston says

    October 13, 2015 at 8:37 am

    Um, what we do IS crucial sometimes! When I talked a student off the ledge after she was raped, I helped her stay alive. Please don’t essentialize!

    Reply
  11. Jono says

    October 4, 2017 at 9:28 am

    3 years later, Nuance and Nuanced are still a fucking headache. These words just won’t die.

    Reply
    • Karen says

      October 4, 2017 at 2:08 pm

      i see no lie.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Banish These Words, 2016 Edition | The Professor Is In says:
    October 11, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    […] I’ve already written about some of the most critical to banish from your vocabulary here, and here. Here is the newest set of words that need to […]

    Reply

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