I chose to examine
the prose of a quantitative research article titled “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do:
The Impact of Unmarried Relationship Dissolution on Mental Health and Life
Satisfaction.” This research was published in the Journal of Family Psychology,
which “offers cutting edge, ground breaking, state-of-the-art and innovative
empirical research in the field of psychology.” The Journal of Family
Psychology devotes study to stress coping and quality of life within families
and couples. In regards to the context, this particular research article would
need to use the official style. They are presenting difficult, time consuming,
and confusing research data. Quantitative research often uses certain jargon to
express procedures and results. The Journal of Family Psychology’s goal is to
present research to couples coping with stress in their relationship want to
help couples. But what if those individuals do not understand some of the words
and concepts? They are losing the audience they say they are attempting to
help.
The context can
confuse the goal audience for this piece of work. Traditionally, I would
consider this piece of work to be read only by academic scholar’s who are
interested in this topic. Much of the time, academic journals are written for
scholars to explain and predict behaviors. Scholars are surrounded by the
official style. Therefore, most research is written in the official style to
accommodate scholars reading skills. However, after discovering more about the
context, this research was published in the Journal of Family Psychology. As I
stated earlier, the goal of this Journal is to present research for families
and couples who would like explanations to their questions about family
dynamics. As we can see, there is a contradiction between these two contexts. For
the “non-academic” audience, words and explanations many not be understood. For
example, much of the research is presented in numerical statistics also known
as quantitative research. Non-academic families and couples may not understand
what the research is even presenting.
The article’s
abstract, shown below, scored a 30.7 on Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, an SMOG
index of 12, average grade level of 14.2, and 18.8 words per sentence. These
scores are fairly high but seem to be in the “normal” range for scholarly
published research. With these high scores, the Journal of Family Psychology’s
audience may not understand the research presented.
“The Wizard of Oz
wisely understood the hazards of having a heart—a heart can be broken. But,
what causes a heart to break more or less? It is well known that individuals
who have recently ended a romantic relationship report
lower levels of well-being than
those who are in relationships (e.g., Sbarra & Emery, 2005; Simon &
Barrett, 2010) but little research has examined changes in well-being from pre-
to post dissolution of an unmarried adult relationship. This study
prospectively examined how unmarried relationship break-up is related to mental
health and life satisfaction in a longitudinal, national sample. Based in part
on the investment model (Rusbult, 1980), we also examined characteristics of
the relationship (such as duration and living together) that may exacerbate the
negative impacts of breaking up. Further, based on the
stressful-event-as-stress-relief model (Wheaton, 1990), we considered factors
that may buffer against negative effects of a break-up (such as dating someone
new).”
The beginning
sentence is actually more non-official sounding than the rest of the text. This
may draw readers in. Those reading this research could be unmarried individuals
who have experienced a break-up, those who have never had a break-up, or those
who are experiencing the distress from a break-up. They may have a difficult
time reading the first paragraph since not everyone is a scholarly researcher
on break-ups. Actually, throughout the entire article, “break-ups” are referred
to as “dissolutions of an adult relationship.” The writers are attempting to
make a break up sound more than a “tragic” event that happened to you when you
were in 7th grade. This is real research about real relationships.
Therefore, the research needs to sound as professional as possible for the
results to be scholarly. However, while the researchers were writing the
article, they did not consider the audience of non-academics.
“Children and
other investments such as shared residences or overlapping social networks can
also make contact with an ex-partner unavoidable. Maintaining a relationship
after dissolution is often stressful and difficult, especially as relationship
boundaries are renegotiated and the terms of the dissolution are decided (e.g.,
Emery & Dillon, 1994). For unmarried couples, especially those with
children or shared property, the lack of legal guidelines for the dissolution
(e.g., Bowman, 2004) could make continuing contact after the break-up even more
conflictual or stressful. A daily diary study of college students who had
recently broken-up supports the idea that more contact with the ex-partner
would be associated with greater distress, as individuals felt more sadness on
the days when contact with the ex-partner occurred (Sbarra & Emery, 2005).”
This passage shows
the use of official style with word choice. The writers are using “shared
residences” rather than “living together”, “overlapping social networks” rather
than “same friends.” This is an easy way to switch from plain style to official
style. Although non-academics will still understand this language, it complicates
the entire message of the research. This leaves the non-academic audience
puzzled and not taking anything away from the research article. Which
contradicts the Journal’s goal of helping families with this particular
research.
“Continued
contact. After the break-up, we measured the frequency with which ex-partners
were still talking with the item, “How often do you talk to this person now
that the relationship has ended?” Participants responded on a 1 (Never) to 5
(Every day) scale. The anchors in between these two end points were “Every few
months” (2), Every few weeks” (3), and “Every few days” (4; M 2.92, SD 1.46).”
Notice how the
researchers asked participants questions in plain language. What does this say?
A communication difference between academics and non-academics is present. They
did not ask about dissolution of a relationship, they asked when the
relationship ended. This example shows the need for different styles of
language. Many people may not understand the complexities of this research but
they are the one’s providing the data. Therefore, researchers need to form the
questions into plain language. However, the actual research needs to be
provided in official style because it is an official, complex research project.
Using different language could create disagreements about what the researcher
is actually presenting. Contrasting views of this research could create
different meanings for whoever is reading. Most families and couples reading
this research are not academics to this degree. Therefore, a problem of
understanding occurs between the two activity systems.
“Another way to
think about the magnitude of these changes is that following a break-up, 30.7%
of the cases reported an increase in psychological distress that was greater
than .5 standard deviations (SD; a medium effect size [Kirk, 1996]) and 19.6%
of the cases reported a decrease in psychological distress that was greater than
.5 SDs.”
This passage
explains why we continue to use official style. Sometimes there is just no
other way to explain something; it has to be told in complex jargon. Those who
know statistics would only know standard deviations. There is no alternate way
to explain the data in plain style. Different groups of readers could have
varying levels of education, which will determine their understanding of the
research. This is where the contradiction lies and problems occur. Since there
is no “plain” way to communicate this research, the non-academic audience is
ultimately lost.
This contradiction
happens in any research presented to non-academic audiences—which is a lot! The
goal of research is to explain and predict. If only academics can understand
the explanations and predictions, they are not helping their target audience of
families and couples. These contradictions are what are wrong with the official
style. It creates a gap between academic research writing and those who would
benefit from the research. How we close this gap between the two writing styles
to create common ground for all audiences could be helpful for both contexts.
M. Whitish
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