{"id":687,"date":"2026-08-08T15:36:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:36:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:36:44","slug":"jason-arday-a-question-of-academic-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687","title":{"rendered":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Amid much attention to Jason Arday\u2019s plagiarism and advanced Walter Mittyfication, the gobbledygook of his writing style has been largely overlooked, not least by the professorial electors at Cambridge and the PhD examiners at Liverpool John Moores University.<\/p>\n

Read more Watching Trump\u2019s Apocalypse<\/a><\/p>\n

Dawkins\u2019 Law of the Conservation of Difficulty states that obscurantism in an academic discipline expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity. Modern physics is genuinely difficult. Natural selection of Pleistocene man did not prepare our poor brains for Einstein or Heisenberg. Common sense, forged in a world of middle-sized objects traveling at medium speeds, must be sent away on compassionate leave when we open a book on quantum mechanics or relativity. Physicists have no need to language-up their writing. Their subject is intrinsically difficult. Naming no names, practitioners of a subject that any fool can understand may suffer from what has been called \u201cphysics-envy\u201d. Longing to sound more profound than they are, what recourse have they but obscurantist language? Look, for example, at the following passage from Arday\u2019s thesis:<\/p>\n

\u201cAn important consideration which also formed part of the theoretical paradigm for the research recognized that the mentoring process is socially constructed, and therefore the relationship between the participants and the researcher needed to be tailored towards supporting the professional development of the student teachers, and making them autonomous social actors in this process, hence the researcher adopting the secondary position of facilitator within the research.\u201d<\/p>\n

I must ask: did the examiners at Liverpool John Moores University, who judged his thesis worthy of a PhD, actually read it? One trivial give-away: the thesis contains 332 instances where a plural noun\u2019s terminal \u201cs\u201d is incorrectly followed by an apostrophe. There\u2019s even one in the thesis title: \u201cAn exploration of peer-mentoring among student teachers\u2019 to inform reflective practice within the context of action research.\u201d Where I come from, a PhD candidate has a research supervisor, with a duty of care. It\u2019s hard to believe even he read the thesis before letting it go forward to examination.<\/p>\n

Never mind the apostrophes. They, at least, are not a substantial barrier to understanding, but my quotations below are, I assure you, typical of the whole thesis. I made an attempt to translate them into English \u2014 see the brackets \u2014 but after the first two gave up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis process allowed the researcher to immerse themself in the data collated.\u201d (This process allowed me to immerse myself\u2026<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the researcher, there was an awareness that the legitimacy of such suggestions regarding reliability are open to critique, however, this research study adopted these principles in attempting to maintain reliability through a qualitative research design.\u201d (I realized that such claims to reliability might be criticized, but I hoped that my qualitative research design was reliable<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The infamous passive voice is much in evidence, together with the associated shunning of the first-person pronoun. \u201cI\u201d is demoted to \u201cthe researcher\u201d, and even he suffers a further demotion, as in the weird \u201cAs the researcher\u201d construction.<\/p>\n

Read more The chew toy that ate my small business<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the researcher, textual units concerning the narratives and biographies were identified based on the criteria that the identified themes were fit for purpose in supporting the themes associated with the study.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReferences were made with regards to the benefits that were gained from the peer-mentoring experience, with regards to developing pedagogically and working as part of a collegial environment to support each other during teacher training.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I might plagiarize Oscar Wilde, a single \u201cwith regards to\u201d might be regarded as a typo. Two in one sentence looks like\u2026 well, let\u2019s just say it\u2019s not what we expect from a Cambridge professor.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the process, at critical junctures the researcher was conscious that with regards to providing knowledge to the participants regarding reflection and mentoring, a contradictory position was being adopted, with regards to eliminating anything that may resemble a hierarchical structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forgive me if I plagiarize myself:<\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, I wouldn\u2019t normally use a public forum to lampoon a style that should have been corrected by a PhD candidate\u2019s supervisor. I wouldn\u2019t normally do it but \u2014 for heaven\u2019s sake \u2014 it\u2019s a Cambridge professor we are talking about, appointed to a presumably much-coveted chair at one of the world\u2019s great universities, possessor of three honorary doctorates. Mightn\u2019t you be forgiven for wondering whether, just possibly, normal standards were relaxed? Arday has now done the honorable thing and resigned, leaving the University of Cambridge with much explaining to do. A BBC news film shows Professor Hilary Cremin calling him \u201cThe best in the world\u201d. She also said that the Board of Electors to his Cambridge professorship were \u201cabsolutely unanimous\u201d. Really?<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there are signs that other faculties at Cambridge are as aghast as the rest of us at what has been done to their university\u2019s good name. May I arm them with a lovely quotation from one of science\u2019s great stylists, Peter Medawar: \u201c\u2026no one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Bach\u2019s lesson for the AI age<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid much attention to Jason Arday\u2019s plagiarism and advanced Walter Mittyfication, the gobbledygook of his writing style has been largely overlooked, not least by the professorial electors at Cambridge and the PhD examiners at Liverpool John Moores University. Read more Watching Trump\u2019s Apocalypse Dawkins\u2019 Law of the Conservation of Difficulty states that obscurantism in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nJason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amid much attention to Jason Arday\u2019s plagiarism and advanced Walter Mittyfication, the gobbledygook of his writing style has been largely overlooked, not least by the professorial electors at Cambridge and the PhD examiners at Liverpool John Moores University. Read more Watching Trump\u2019s Apocalypse Dawkins\u2019 Law of the Conservation of Difficulty states that obscurantism in an […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0421ity Flow Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4\"},\"headline\":\"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687\"},\"wordCount\":947,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687\",\"name\":\"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1097},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?p=687#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"\u0421ity Flow Journal\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityflowjournal.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal","og_description":"Amid much attention to Jason Arday\u2019s plagiarism and advanced Walter Mittyfication, the gobbledygook of his writing style has been largely overlooked, not least by the professorial electors at Cambridge and the PhD examiners at Liverpool John Moores University. Read more Watching Trump\u2019s Apocalypse Dawkins\u2019 Law of the Conservation of Difficulty states that obscurantism in an […]","og_url":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687","og_site_name":"\u0421ity Flow Journal","article_published_time":"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/#\/schema\/person\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4"},"headline":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards","datePublished":"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687"},"wordCount":947,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp","articleSection":["Interesting"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687","url":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687","name":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards - \u0421ity Flow Journal","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp","datePublished":"2026-08-08T15:36:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/#\/schema\/person\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ab4ff30c959288d6704badb0c4a696b7-2.webp","width":1920,"height":1097},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=687#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jason Arday: a question of academic standards"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/","name":"\u0421ity Flow Journal","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/#\/schema\/person\/eb5442f0ad6aa87f0eddf619a8d0abc4","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/cityflowjournal.com"],"url":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}