Abstract
Here are some stories about writing critically. We have written them to beguile you and make you laugh. But we also want to provoke you to think about how and why you write. Interspersed are short, unashamedly idiosyncratic statements about what we think is wrong with much of the writing that goes on in the field, and why we think writing matters. We want to discourage pompous, impenetrable writing; writing that seems driven by desires to demonstrate one's cleverness, or to accrue publications as ends in themselves.