Literary Critic and Scholar

D.G. Myers

1 article 1999

D.G. Myers was a literary critic, scholar, and professor of English known for his sharp commentary on academic writing and literary culture. He taught at Texas A&M University and Ohio State University and was the author of 'The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880.' He contributed criticism to The Weekly Standard addressing the state of academic prose.

BAD WRITING

May 10, 1999 · Magazine, Books and Arts

Bad academic writing is nothing new. Back in 1912, the critic Brander Matthews damned the scholarship of his day for its "endless quotations and endless citations and endless references," its shameless taste for "interminable controversy over minor questions," its careless assumption that every…