/lit/ - Literature

>>8565973
I think that the definition of intellectual depends on your field.

For example, scientists like to be simple and straight to the point. No double meanings. No allusions. Everything facilitates this, especially jargon that can simplify a twenty word sentence down into one word. Dot points, word limited summaries and diagrams rather than huge blocks of text are valued.

Technically Sanderson is the most scientific of authors. For every work he writes, there is a table/quick reference at the back which sets out all the important information in a very easy to read form and which is regularly updated.

Other authors write the public perception of science or maybe how a very specific research field/speciality looks from the outside (a huge collection of words with no clearly definition put in an illogical mishmash). Science fiction isn't really proper science and is just language for enjoyment. For example, this from Watts' work:

>We'd seen Rorschach's walls move, slow lazy waves of peristalsis rippling along its gut.

The words 'slow lazy waves rippling' are already implied by the word 'peristalsis'. A scientist should write, 'We observed Roscharch's walls make intestinal peristaltic movements' to keep it concise.

It's amusing how many scifi authors go for 'as many confusing allusions, allegories and metaphors as I can fit in' when verbosity is a sin in our field. (The rare written assignment is often summarise this in <300 words and most tests are MCQs/SAQs). Maybe writing is their way of being contrarian.