Possibly the Worst Sentence I've Ever Written.

I took some intense academic exams nearly two years ago. These were my "prelims" or preliminary examinations to mark the end of coursework and beginning of dissertation work. 

For eight hours a day, five days out of ten, I constructed responses to various questions set forth by my doctoral committee. I did not know the questions in advance but had a good idea of the content area. There was internet access. Google Scholar was a blessing. I prepared for several months, including one week in rural northwest Ontario, Canada, without electricity while my buddies caught their limit of walleye, bass, and northern pike. It was good time, eh!

I answered one "question" per day during the examination period. Each "question" included several questions or topics under a specific domain: knowledge and trust related to risk communication; social norms; social networks; trust and rigor in qualitative data analysis; and the role of place in environmental communications. I wrote thousands of words a day, extemporaneously, and turned in my responses at the end of each eight hours. It was a Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday. Or something like that. 

Not every sentence was a winner, to be sure. Upon re-reading, some don't even make sense. Perhaps the most heinous reads as such: 

Theoretical advances such as these are part of the push among social scientists and philosophers to move into broader notions of post-industrial risk societies where nonpoint-source pollution and faceless multinational corporations enjoy both the financial privileges of individuals in the political process and the diffusion of responsibility afforded by their complex multi-networked structures and non-expert individuals are seen as valuable contributors to the ongoing development and dialogue concerning the dynamic relationships of culturally sensitive understanding, knowledge generation, and the tenuous relationships of trust being carefully constructed through both honest debate and deliberation as well as pure propaganda. 

The point being: write for your audience but don't over-write. One of my ongoing academic goals is to let the tone of those prelim responses be the height of pretentious, academic writing. So far, so good.