Huh‽ In Pursuit of Academic Writing that Fascinates and Enthralls at AMD

Invited Editorial

Christopher G. Myers
Academy of Management Discoveries, vol. 11(1), 2025 Mar, pp. 1-8

DOI: 10.5465/amd.2025.0003

Cite

APA Click to copy
Myers, C. G. (2025). Huh‽ In Pursuit of Academic Writing that Fascinates and Enthralls at AMD. Academy of Management Discoveries, 11(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2025.0003

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Myers, Christopher G. “Huh‽ In Pursuit of Academic Writing That Fascinates and Enthralls at AMD.” Academy of Management Discoveries 11, no. 1 (March 2025): 1–8.

MLA Click to copy
Myers, Christopher G. “Huh‽ In Pursuit of Academic Writing That Fascinates and Enthralls at AMD.” Academy of Management Discoveries, vol. 11, no. 1, Mar. 2025, pp. 1–8, doi:10.5465/amd.2025.0003.

BibTeX Click to copy

@article{christopher2025a,
  title = {Huh‽ In Pursuit of Academic Writing that Fascinates and Enthralls at AMD},
  year = {2025},
  month = mar,
  issue = {1},
  journal = {Academy of Management Discoveries},
  pages = {1-8},
  volume = {11},
  doi = {10.5465/amd.2025.0003},
  author = {Myers, Christopher G.},
  month_numeric = {3}
}

A lot of academic writing stinks. Turgid language, tortured logic, and templated construction leave readers unable to interpret (never mind, enjoy) far too much of the writing we produce as academics. Granted, this might just be my opinion (cue Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski), but it’s certainly not a lonely one. A quick online search will turn up no shortage of articles, threads, posts, blogs, and editorials on the ongoing scourge of academese. A decade ago, Steven Pinker, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, laid out the consequences of our profession’s affliction with stilted writing (after devoting over 5000 words trying to make sense of it): “In writing badly, we are wasting each other’s time, sowing confusion and error, and turning our profession into a laughingstock” (Pinker, 2014).

From its inception, Academy of Management Discoveries (AMD) has been a journal focused on clearly communicating management research discoveries, through its exploratory, phenomenon-forward approach as well as its engagement-focused, multimedia dissemination strategies (Van de Ven et al., 2015). As part of these efforts, AMDembraces clear, engaging writing as a defining feature of the journal, with an emphasis on the incorporation of rich context, transparent communication of methods, and preservation of the authors’ voice (https://aom.org/research/journals/discoveries).