The Pros and Cons of Artistic Liscense

Everyone has their own voice, whether it is spoken or written. Even if two people speak the same language, their perception of the words exchanged and their understanding of them can be radically different. As such, communication of ideas becomes very difficult. Since academia sets its foundation on the exchange of ideas, I'd like to take a moment to remark on one of the controversies that occurs in the world of communication do to this  phenomena: the fight between "artistic" writing and "scholarly" writing. 

The fact that a writer must use quotes when citing these two literary school is evidence of a miscommunication in the world of academics, since the two categories overlap extensively, if not completely. However, for the sake of simplicity, artistic writing is considered to be more informal, opinionated, and an expression of the writer's personal style, whereas scholarly writing is more formal, "objective" (see my other works for the many problems I have with this standard), and a reflection of observations outside of the writer's personal belief system. In both styles the writer has the goal of communicating thoughts and ideas to the readers, but the approach is different for each. 

The pros and cons of these two approaches are ambiguous, controversial, and convoluted, but will be explored so as to open the floor for discussion. Artistic writing is typically seen in solo works (e.g. not a compilation of literature, but a publication accredited to the author as an independent work.) The list of these writers is endless, but two classic philosophers to cite would be Friedrich Nietzsche and Ronald Dworkin. These writers are known for using unique styles that stray from the orthodox approach of systematically laying out one's philosophy, or presenting it in a practical sense. Instead, they write in a method favoring artistic expression and appreciation of the ideas that they are discussing. One of the benefits of this is that the writing will appear more casual and approachable, encouraging a reader to continue reading and exploring the topics. However, this is not always the case. In fact, Nietzsche is known for being one of the most commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted philosophers in modern philosophy. As such, the language used by a writer has equal potential to include or exclude potential readers. 

Academic writing is typically seen in journals and other joint publications. This is the style that is used in the majority of classroom settings and strives to be universal in its language, fitting to a system of writing and citing. More often then not this type of writing loses the personal touch of the writer as they lose the freedom to write as they feel and are forced to fit a standard. 

The similarities between the two are rather striking. Both express the ideas of the writer, both will cite other works and evidence in order to support their own argument, and both will be read and interpreted (and misinterpreted) just as easily as the other. True, there are certain cardinal sins in the world of academia, such as avoiding profanity, obeying laws of grammar and punctuation (because you do not have the poetic license to defy them, and never referring to oneself in the first person. But outside of this, there are very few things a person shouldn't be allowed to publish in a journal or for a class that they otherwise would be able to in a personal memoir. Allegories and discuss the same concepts as a paper presented at a conference, and personal anecdotes should be cited in either, though to varying degrees of strength in supporting one's argument depending on what argument is being argued. Thus, one must ask: what are the differences in artistic and academic writing? What are some pros and cons of each? I open the floor to discussion.