Learn to Write Badly

Michael Billig has been Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University for more than 25 years. In 2011 he received the Distinguished Contribution to Social Psychology Award from the Social Section of the British Psychological Society. He is the author of Freudian Repression (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Arguing and Thinking (Cambridge University Press, 1987, 1996).

• 1. Introduction; 2. Mass publication and academic life; 3. Learning to write badly; 4. Jargon, nouns and acronyms; 5. Turning people into things; 6. How to avoid saying who did it; 7. Some sociological things: governmentality, cosmopolitanization and conversation analysis; 8. Experimental social psychology: concealing and exaggerating; 9. Conclusion and recommendations.

'Michael Billig makes important and novel arguments about the state of writing - and therefore the state of thinking - in the social sciences. This book presents detailed critiques of writings by a wide range of social scientists. Billig uses vivid examples to demonstrate the conditions in which bad writing is nurtured and to show its wider significance for academia and beyond. This is a highly entertaining read which had me laughing out loud at times.' Christine Griffin, University of Bath