Most of what academics write is intended to persuade other academics of something. That’s true for essayists, too. James Baldwin, when asked if writing an essay was easier than writing a novel, replied, “An essay is essentially an argument. The writer’s point of view in an essay is always absolutely clear. The writer is trying to make the readers see something, trying to convince them of something.” Essays, articles, monographs—the bread and butter of an academic writing life—are about persuasion. Those academic audiences are learned and demanding, and their curiosity is a learned, demanding curiosity. They’re trained to engage complexity (not just positions and speculations but also footnotes, endnotes, appendices, and bibliographic tails of all stripes). They live in expectation of argument and counterargument, of ideas in interesting shapes, laid out to pursue truths in new forms. They may read with their boxing gloves on.
Germano, William. On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts. University of Chicago Press, 2021. p. 29
