I missed the news in late-August that Howard Becker had passed away

A phenomenal social scientist. Not mentioned in his obit is that many who have never read is scholarly work have poured over and dog eared is, arguably magisterial, writing for social scientists, Writing for Social Scientists, Third Edition, recently reissued and updated.

I happened to re-read it earlier this year. After reading the obit over the weekend, I flipped through the book to look at my annotations. Something caught my attention about working with the existing literature on a topic. After describing the strengths of building your argument by relying on what’s before rather than building it all from scratch, he added this pithy caution.

The understanding you’re trying to convey will lose its coherence put in terms that grow out of a different understanding.

I don’t think I appreciated my disdain for jargon until reflecting on the impact Becker has had on my intellectual growth as a writer. I’ve never read a word of his scholarship, but I know I will continue re-reading Writing for Social Scientists for years to come and will continue recommending it to younger scholars coming up the ranks.

RIP, Howard. We thank you for all the help.