College Composition and Communication Feb 2010 Open Access

The Ruse of Clarity

Ian Barnard

Abstract

This essay interrogates the concept of “clarity” that has become an imperative of effective student writing. I show that clarity is neither axiomatic nor transparent, and that the clear/unclear binary that informs the identification of clarity as a goal of effective student writing is itself unstable precisely because of the ideological baggage that undergirds its construction. I make this argument by finding the traces of composition’s insistence on student writers’ clarity in the attacks on the writing of critical theorists.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2010-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc20109955
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Open Access
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Hassel et al. (2026)
    Crying Censorship Wolf: Prefiguring Contemporary Realities through Disciplinary…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Lazere (2021)
    Interchanges: Response to Paula Mathieu and William H. Thelin
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Campbell et al. (2017)
    Plain-Style Preferences of US Professionals
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  4. Rakedzon et al. (2017)
    To make a long story short: A rubric for assessing graduate students’ academic …
    Assessing Writing
  5. Kreuter (2015)
    The US Intelligence Community's Mathematical Ideology of Technical Communication
    Technical Communication Quarterly

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