Loaded Language: Writing and Editing Controversial Content for Professional or Scholarly Publication

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It’s been a tough year. Civic and political unrest in the United States, Brexit, a worldwide pandemic, military rule in Myanmar, religious and political extremism, among others. While you may wish to express your opinion on such issues in personal social media accounts, examining both current and historical issues in a professional or scholarly context intended for publication requires a different approach.

​How do you get your message across in a way that will convince your readers and not set them on edge? This question is particularly pertinent in academic and scholarly nonfiction, in which the writer is seen as the expert imparting important information to the audience. Your job as an authority is to present your research and draw conclusions in such a way that your readers follow along with you and then draw their own conclusions based on your evidence—without being told how to feel about it. That is something that should be left up to readers to discover for themselves, when faced with the evidence presented. Otherwise, a writer risks possibly alienating readers or making them feel manipulated by the text.

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