Academia is carving out new frontiers in flimflam and chicanery.

Have Hugh ever wondered how to write an academic paper? What with the vertiginous standards of contemporary writing out there, no one would blame you for feeling intimidated out of it:

Real.

As you can see, this is real cutting-edge stuff. But don't be discouraged: with a bit of coaching, you too can write important essays on identity cults and the narcissists who love them. Follow these six simple steps to ensure your intellectual prolapse will pass for the real thing.

• Add "-ness" to words that don't end in -ness. Examples could include "unknowableness" or  even "being-ness". "Otherness" is a must.
• Always remember to pluralise words that don't need to be plural, in such a way as to imply that there are subtle differences within and around a concept that only you can understand. For example, never speak of "postmodernism" but "postmodernisms". Use this even with collective terms like "public" (publics). If you combine this with the above tactic, you score a combo which is worth at least 1000 ticks. Be sure to write about "blacknesses" and "subjectivenesses" for mad approval.
• Find someone who is different from you and accuse them of "othering" you (or the minority you purport to speak for, if you're feeling in the mood for condescending to yet another group that are unlike you). If you do this quickly and stridently enough, nobody will notice that you are the only one "othering" people by bringing up irrelevant details about them like their sex or hair colour.
• Make sure to "reclaim" words like "bitch" and "queer" so you can pretend to be rebellious while doing the opposite by diluting effect and meaning from language. I remember when I first learned that "queer theory" was used by professionals. You might as well call it "bumming studies". Troll academics by pointing out that this is cultural appropriation of black people, who invented reclaiming so they would have something to rhyme with trigger in their rap songs.
• Never write in the first person, as this makes it too obvious that everything you're saying is your unexamined left-bougie prejudices. Instead of removing your ass-ignorant worldview from your writing, just remove all references to "I", "me" and "mine" (this is what academics actually teach).
• Astute readers will note that all this stuff relates to form and style. This is because the substance of academic writing ceased to be important in, like, probably the 50s. No one cares, for instance, that Hamlet is all about Shakespear's Sister's depression over their dead son, the decline of empire, and the existential horror of not knowing what comes after death. Is Hamlet gay? Does he exhibit othernesses? Academia demands to know.

If you but follow these few steps, you'll soon be well on your way to balding, supercilious glory.