“the more we write and the great variety of genres…”

As usual, Alex Reid delivers with a smart response to this Chronicle article. Reid:

Why ask whether writing on the Internet makes you a better academic writer? Why not ask whether academic writing makes you a better user of social media? I suppose it is understandable that academics might want to value a particular kind of academic writing, but in the end that valuation is a demonstration of thinking that is no less sloppy than the poor thinking habits of which they accuse students.

I wonder where one might find the longitudinal studies and extensive research that demonstrates that academic writing (if such a thing actually exists and can be quantitatively defined) is the best possible genre for developing “critical thinking” or producing and disseminating disciplinary knowledge. Of course such studies and research do no exist. The value of academic writing is purely tautological. Academic writing is the best academic writing because academic writing is what academic writing is.

[. . .]

The best I think we can say is what should be fairly obvious. The more we write and the greater variety of genres in which we write, the better prepared we will be to write in a variety of genres in the future.

But you should read the rest.