Read on Twitter
Personally, I find that I have to write and express the same ideas in different registers and with varying levels of abstraction in order *for me* to understand what *I* mean clearly. Abstraction should not be the end of your writing -- it is but a stage in a pedagogical process.
That's why I shift between the academic and the vernacular, the abstract and the concrete, not only between manuscripts but often within them (e.g. How to Be Less Stupid About Race). I don't really consider this code switching. It's enacting and blending different voices.
You can probably identify at least three or four different modes of expression and conceptual voices in my tweets. Sometimes that's because the imagined audience varies, sometimes it's because I'm working out ideas in different ways using the full range of my own vernacular..
Sometimes I write about something in a very jargony way because I do not yet know how to write about it at all, much less clearly. So I use the words that come, when, if and as they come as a place to begin. Beginnings can be inaccessible and messy. That's why we begin again.
This is also why teaching is important for the process of writing and conceptual development. Educators (should) take abstract ideas and translate them into forms that students can understand.. which, in turn, clarifies your own understanding.
