Found this great column by philosopher Jonathan Wolff, who has the goods on academic writing.
“At least in my subject, we teach students to go sub-zero on the tension scale: to give the game away right from the start. A detective novel written by a good philosophy student would begin: “In this novel I shall show that the butler did it.” The rest will be just filling in the details.”
Worth reading the whole thing if you are in the academic game.
A Few Reasonable Words 