Why are academic articles/journals/papers so hard to understand? [closed]

Solution 1:

I would offer a few reasons journals can be hard to read:

1) Researchers who established and talented enough to have their work published in journals are not necessarily good writers. These are highly intelligent folks, gifted in their specialized areas, but not necessarily well-schooled in the art of writing clearly. A physicist can be a mediocre writer yet still be a darn good physicist.

2) An academic article is not intended to be a literary piece, or even a textbook. It's intended to be written by experts, for experts. Authors don't spend a lot of time providing background information, because the readers are presumed to have an expert background in the same field already. The expected formula is: Concisely introduce your research, explain your experiment, and present your findings.

This is not to say that a well-written piece wouldn't be preferred over a poorly written piece, but that's not the main emphasis. Those reading journals are reading to be informed about the newest findings, not taught or entertained. This isn't Life magazine – and it's not intended to be. If you're a beginner wanting to learn more about gallium arsenide semiconductors, don't start by reading journals – you're at the wrong end of the ladder.

3) By nature, many journals are hard to read because the subjects are quite advanced. Authors are condensing months worth of research into a single paper, and, in the scientific fields, their findings are supported by statistics derived from technical experiments. It's not meant to be browsed in the waiting room at the dentist's office.