Rhetorical Candour: When and How to Say It Straight in Your Academic Manuscript

TL;DR

This paper discusses how to write academic manuscripts clearly and directly without losing scholarly credibility.

Contribution

It introduces rhetorical candour as a writing strategy to balance clarity and nuance in academic writing.

Findings

Academic hedging can be reduced through controlled use of modality and sentence structure.

Rhetorical candour allows writers to be plainspoken while maintaining scholarly tone.

Nuanced and direct communication can coexist in academic writing with proper rhetorical techniques.

Abstract

This Writer’s Craft explores rhetorical candour: the art of saying what you mean and saying it straight, while remaining scholarly and credible. Through control of modality and sentence structure, writers can avoid the habitual academic hedge so that their work is nuanced where necessary and plainspoken where effective.

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