Jeffries Vincent (Editor). Handbook Of Public Sociology
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162 Chapter 9
today. Three, given our concern with generations, we are interested in how
boomers may be transforming religious and spiritual life.
While Roof engages in some product differentiation, his tone is overall
highly positive and not critical. Indeed, the take-home from this passage
is clearly one of building on the Habits team’s efforts. The distinctions
he makes suggest his work has a different focus without implying that
Habits is a flawed book. In saying that his book is “inspired” by Habits,
moreover, Roof builds the “sociological brand” by suggesting other ex-
emplary works of sociology to his readership. In so doing, he encourages
his public to see sociological writing as relevant to their own lives and
concerns.
Rendering the Abstract Concrete
Sociological thought tends toward abstraction. Many of its categories,
measures, methods, and ideas are complex and opaque to non-profes-
sionals. Public sociology can only be made relevant and useful to publics
when they can readily grasp the concepts that animate sociological thought.
Consequently, one of the challenges of public sociology is to translate our
findings into terms that are instantly meaningful to our chosen publics.
3
This task is accomplished admirably by Christopher Jencks (2004:35) in
an American Prospect article on low-wage jobs. In his first paragraph, Jencks
writes:
When America’s most recent economic boom ended in 2001, the economy was
turning out $7 trillion worth of consumer goods and services a year—enough
to provide every man, woman and child with almost $25,000 worth of food,
housing, transportation, medical care and other things every year. If all that
stuff had been divided equally, the typical American household, which now
has three members, would have gotten about $75,000 worth. Yet as we see in
this issue of the Prospect, based on new research by the Russell Sage and Rock-
efeller foundations, a lot of Americans had to scrape by on far less than that.
Almost one American worker in five reported having been paid less than $8
an hour in 2001. That works out to less than $17,000 a year even if you work
full time. And many low-wage workers earned considerably less than $17,000
because they were unemployed for part of the year, worked less than 40 hours
a week or earned less than $8 an hour.
Here, Jencks successfully takes familiar but somewhat inaccessible fig-
ures and makes them instantly meaningful by converting them into an
immediately recognizable metric: annual income. The size of the American
economy ($7 trillion) becomes $75,000 a year per family; low wages ($8
an hour) become $17,000 a year per worker. Put in these terms, the figures
On Writing Public Sociology 163
become much more personally accessible, thereby making it instantly clear
why the statistics matter.
Besides translating inaccessible findings, Jencks translates somewhat
abstract concepts into concrete, immediately meaningful phrases. For ex-
ample, following a comparison of income inequality in the United States
and Europe, he summarizes the concept of “economic inequality,” by ask-
ing, “So why do ordinary American workers get to keep less of what they
produce than ordinary workers in other rich countries?” (Jencks 2004:36).
Again, an abstract concept becomes immediately meaningful through
choice of phrasing. In making his data and ideas meaningful in this way,
Jencks goes a long way to making them relevant to his public.
ACCESSIBILITY
At a minimum, public sociology should, as many have emphasized, avoid
the use of sociological jargon, excessive statistics, and untranslated theoriz-
ing. However, the form of public sociology can be still further improved by
making use of public forms and conventions of writing. By using the narra-
tive conventions and stylistic devices publics are used to consuming, soci-
ologists reduce the obstacles of form that might otherwise deter lay readers.
We suggest two in particular: adopting popular forms such as vignettes, and
subordinating external references to allow the narrative to flow unimpeded.
Writing in the Form Your Public Reads
Different types of sociology have characteristic formats. The paradig-
matic form of professional sociology is the journal article, which—in
separate sections—provides a review of previous research, an exposition
of methods, and a presentation of research findings. Policy sociology, like-
wise, is written in the genre of a policy paper, with an executive summary
and an explicit set of recommendations (e.g., Young and Quinn 2002).
Critical sociology, by virtue of its normative focus, often takes the format
of a philosophical rumination (e.g., Bellah et al. 1985:297–307). Like the
other three forms of sociology, public sociology should be written in a
style that its audience reads, whatever that may be. Sociological contribu-
tions written in a form legible to the public are more likely to seem rel-
evant to that public. This means that the public sociologist must take care
to identify the appropriate genre for her audience, and should consider
incorporating stylistic aspects from those literatures into her own writing.
To emphasize relevance to publics and increase accessibility, public so-
ciologists should write using stylistic devices similar to those used in other
texts one’s public reads. An example of someone who does this well is
164 Chapter 9
Hung Cam Thai (2003). Thai presents his research findings in a way that
draws upon the style of newspaper articles, using a vignette in his first para-
graph to hook the reader:
Men and women like Mihn and Thanh have dreams, but their dreams clash.
He wants the best of tradition and she wants the best of modernity. He believes
the respect he has been searching for did not arrive with him when he migrated
to the United States almost 20 years ago, but instead was left back safely in
Vietnam. She feels that the marital respect she needs is waiting for her in the
United States and that she will get it when she joins him through marriage
migration. Minh, 37, represents one of the more than two million Viet Kieus,
or Vietnamese people living overseas, who make up an aging diaspora that
largely began in the mid-1970s, after the postwar years. He is also one of the
over a million Viet Kieus who returned to visit family and friends during the
year 2000, a dramatic increase from the 160,000 who did so in 1993. Thanh,
32, will soon join Minh as one of the over 200,000 women and men world-
wide who come to the United States each year through marriage migration,
the number one mechanism for contemporary legal migration to the United
States. (Thai 2003:275)
Once Thai has hooked the reader with a story about a couple’s dreams for
marriage, he brings in previous studies that emphasize that this Vietnamese
couple is part of a much broader social trend. The vignette mimics a form
of journalistic writing familiar to a wide variety of publics and gives readers
a concrete, human example of an issue that might otherwise seem distant
and abstract. By beginning his narrative with a vignette from his research,
Thai both contextualizes his references and makes his point immediately
meaningful to his audience, thereby improving both his work’s meaning
and relevance to his audience.
4
Clearing the Way for Narrative
Publics rarely read texts chock full of citations and so, although one
needs to acknowledge outside voices to create dialogue, references should
not be allowed to overwhelm the narrative. By incorporating references
throughout the text, public sociologists can enhance their ability to tell a
coherent and compelling story from beginning to end of their book or ar-
ticle, while still providing their readers with multiple points of entrée into
the text and context for their findings.
In his book, One Nation After All, Alan Wolfe (1999) skillfully weaves in-
formation about the larger context of his findings in with his own data. He
subordinates his literature references to his narrative, so that his narrative
reads fluidly and one hardly notices when he is incorporating references
to other studies. For example, in his chapter on middle-class Americans
On Writing Public Sociology 165
and parenting, where he argues that worries about dangers facing their
children make parents more conservative than they otherwise would be,
Wolfe writes:
That does not mean, of course, that teenage sex is a nonissue for middle-class
American parents; 84 percent of the American people think that teenage preg-
nancy is a serious problem. A feeling that parents have lost control over their
children’s sexuality is one of the deepest currents in American public opinion.
. . . Sociologist Kristin Luker, studying sexual behavior, could just as easily be
discussing drugs and violence when she writes, “What parents . . . seem to
want is some measure of control over how their children behave in the world
of sexual freedom that opened up in the 1970s.” And control is precisely what
most Americans think they may never obtain. (Wolfe 1999:120)
Throughout the book, as in this quote, Wolfe uses references to others’
data primarily as a means to support or expand the narrative he is telling
about his own research findings. Several subtle techniques help to make his
writing accessible, and even compelling, to lay readers. First, Wolfe removes
his citations to the rear of the book. Citations are not even noted within the
body of the text, but instead are referenced by line and page number at the
rear. While frustrating to social scientists, for lay readers, the lack of foot-
noting or citations allows for the uninterrupted flow of the narrative and
allows them to forget that they are reading an “academic” book. But more
important than this layout trick, the studies he cites are interspersed among
his own findings, brought in at times to highlight or provide context to his
overall argument. In the quote above, for instance, Wolfe brings references
to other studies in almost offhandedly; the almost subliminal nature of
the presentation allows the narrative to flow unabated, and important in-
formation is presented in the context where it is most meaningful. Finally,
and relatedly, Wolfe spreads the moments when he cites existing literature
throughout the book. As a result, there is no imposing block of literature to
wade through in order to get to the author’s argument, as there would be
in a work of professional sociology; the two are seamlessly interwoven. By
bringing in data as context and by smoothly weaving these references into
his explanation of his own findings, Wolfe is able to let his narrative about
his research shine and does not subordinate it to a summary of literatures.
In this way, he is able to keep his writing engaging as well as focused on
how it is relevant to his chosen public.
IMPLICATIONS FOR GRADUATE EDUCATION
The above discussion is relevant for all sociologists interested in writing
for publics beyond the discipline. However, it is perhaps most relevant for
166 Chapter 9
those just entering the field—graduate students. Our discussion suggests
both that greater attention must be paid to writing generally, and to writing
for public audiences more specifically, in programs of graduate education.
Currently, there is a lamentable lack of attention to writing in gradu-
ate curricula. The focus of most doctoral programs is, as it should be, on
equipping students with the tools and analytic skills necessary to conduct
research (Brint 2005). Unfortunately, this has meant that teaching students
how to communicate effectively is often overlooked entirely. To the extent
that students are taught how to write at all, they are taught how to write
professional sociology for the consumption of professional sociologists.
Worse, this teaching is often left implicit, and students are expected to learn
through osmosis by aping the format of journal articles. Small wonder that
sociologists have so frequently been excoriated for their awful writing skills
(Cowley 1956)!
This inattention to effective communication represents a potentially
fatal obstacle to public sociology. As this form develops, and the number
of publics sociologists attempt to speak to expands, the more important it
will become for graduate curricula to seriously grapple with the problem
of writing for multiple audiences. At a minimum, this will mean explicitly
discussing the principles of effective writing, and highlighting that the way
sociologists write for each other cannot simply be reproduced when writing
for non-sociologists.
The problem of writing is infinitely more complex for reflexive forms of
sociology—public and critical—than it is for the instrumental forms. Pro-
fessional and policy sociology have well defined audiences whose referents
and interests are clearly established. Consequently, they also have well
defined genres with clear formal conventions: the policy paper and the pro-
fessional book and journal article. Indeed, the fact that so much teaching
about writing can be left implicit rests on the regular interaction (through
coursework and the research process) students and their advisors have with
these familiar genres.
As Burawoy (2005:7) notes, however, public sociology speaks to mul-
tiple publics. This implies a multiplicity of genres. For public sociology,
learning how to define the public one hopes to reach and to learn their
referents and conventions becomes a central concern. Critical sociology, the
fourth form Burawoy identifies, faces a similar problem. Although Burawoy
(2005:16) states that critical sociology must be accountable to “critical
intellectuals,” in reality—as a moral and reflexive criticism of intellectual
groundings—it must be aimed at all intellectuals. (After all, what good is it
for critical sociology only to persuade other critical intellectuals? The goal
is to persuade all intellectuals to reconsider their normative commitments.)
Burawoy himself acknowledges that critical sociology’s reference base must
“transcend disciplinary boundaries.” But here, too, this implies a multiplic-
On Writing Public Sociology 167
ity of genres and conventions to which one needs to speak, since disciplin-
ary writing conventions and referents can vary widely.
For public sociology to succeed, sociology departments must focus greater
attention on writing generally, and on writing for multiple audiences. The
principles outlined in this chapter represent a starting point for developing
courses or workshops in effective communication. Learning to define one’s
audience, determining the referents that will make one’s work relevant to
that audience, and the conventions that make one’s work accessible to that
audience should be core components of these efforts. Following Burawoy’s
(2005) suggestion to develop a “sociology of publics” can only enhance
the potential that graduate writing courses hold for advancing the project
of public sociology.
CONCLUSION
Public sociologists have frequently called for sociological writing to be ac-
cessible, generally arguing that this means writing in “plain English” (Gans
1989). This is most definitely true, but writing in plain English is only a
necessary, not a sufficient, component of accessibility. Our goal instead
should be to write accountably for our chosen public. We have argued that
accountability is, in turn, fundamentally about engaging with a designated
public through dialogue, relevance, and accessibility.
We believe that the proposals we have presented in this chapter should
apply to public sociological writing irrespective of the particular approach
to public sociology that one takes. Burawoy’s approach is often understood
as a significant departure from the more conventional approach to public
sociology associated with Gans (see, e.g., Hausknecht 2002), a divide Bura-
woy characterizes as one of “traditional” versus “organic” forms of public
sociology (2005:7). Despite the divergence of goals and vision of these two
forms, in the practice of writing the distinctions between approaches evapo-
rate, as both approaches require accessibility, accountability, dialogue, and
relevance in order to successfully communicate with publics. To obtain these
goals, public sociologists must reassess the purpose and the form of their
writings, and cast a broader net for relevant voices with whom to engage.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the 2006 meetings of the
American Sociological Association. The authors thank Michael Burawoy,
Claude Fischer, Vincent Jeffries, Larry Nichols, and Gretchen Purser for
helpful feedback.
168 Chapter 9
NOTES
Authors are listed in alphabetical order; work on the chapter was divided equally.
1. This seems to be particularly true for the various symposia on and special
issues of journals devoted to public sociology. See, for example, the June 2004 is-
sue of Social Forces 82(4) and the June 2005 issue of the British Journal of Sociology
56(3).
2. There is a great need for a “sociology of publics” that can assist public sociolo-
gists in this endeavor. Due to space limitations, however, we are unable to discuss
this here.
3. This does not mean “dumbing down” sociology. As John Scott (2005) notes,
there is a risk of oversimplifying sociological concepts in a manner that make them
seem like academic restatements of the obvious. The trick for public sociology is to
cast findings in ways that retain the subtlety and nuance of the concepts while mak-
ing those conceptual nuances evident to the public.
4. Different audiences are likely to find different stylistic techniques particularly
appealing. Executive summaries, side boxes, pamphlets, and bullet points are other
familiar techniques that public sociologists might use depending on their public. As
with literature selection, defining and knowing one’s public is a crucial first step to
realizing the benefits of this writing strategy.
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The tremendous enthusiasm with which the idea of public sociology has
been embraced is a positive development. It indicates that many sociolo-
gists are aware that their discipline is not simply “academic” and that the
kinds of questions they engage with require a wider conversation with a
wider non-professional public. Some proponents of public sociology also
aspire to embrace the role of a socially aware intellectual. Back in the early
sixties C. Wright Mills reminded us that the “intellectual ought to be the
moral conscience of his society.” Of course sociologists and intellectuals
do not all share the same philosophy and political outlook. They live for
different ideas. But despite differences, which are sometimes bitter and far-
reaching—intellectuals share a common desire to influence the world. In
particular they possess a common commitment to function as the critical
voice for the truth as they see it. Accordingly they are partisans of the truth.
C. Wright Mills argued that “in the first instance the politics of the intel-
lectual are ‘the politics of truth.’” He took the view that through the pursuit
of the truth, the intellectual held the powers that be to account. “Whatever
else the intellectual may be, surely he is among those who ask serious ques-
tions, and, if he is a political intellectual, he asks his questions of those with
power” (Mills 1963a:238).
In some cases the turn toward public sociology may be motivated by
narrow professional ambitions. Sometimes it seems that the embrace of
“public sociology” is motivated by the wrong motive—the imperative to be
seen to be “relevant.” This orientation is to some extent expressed through
the attempt to institutionalize public sociology. Such an initiative may
encourage public sociology to become a caricature of itself. Perhaps it is
best to think of public sociology as what we do rather than as a subject to
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Recapturing the Sociological
Imagination: The Challenge
for Public Sociology
Frank Furedi