Ask HN: Why is academic language so redundant?
There are multiple reasons.<p>It&#x27;s hard to write up a scientific report, and condense all the thing you want to say, and get the details and nuances correct.<p>It&#x27;s also hard to write well. Look at all the people who go to classes and workshops to become better authors, and that&#x27;s for a field where you might get paid if you write well. But &quot;able to write well&quot; isn&#x27;t one of the things likely to give tenure or a promotion.<p>There are innumerable papers urging scientists to become better writers. But why should they? Where&#x27;s the real pressure to also include the writing quality as a way to judge a paper.<p>&quot;Oh, I&#x27;m sorry Herr Turing, but your paper on computability isn&#x27;t up to our literary qualities. We recommend you work with a ghostwriter or writing coach.&quot;?<p>And yes, some papers do get that response, but it&#x27;s rare, and mostly for non-native speakers who don&#x27;t know the journal&#x27;s language that well.<p>Then, yes, there are people who write that way because they believe that stilted and opaque language is the correct style.<p>Or there&#x27;s the Sokal affair, where a journal accepted &quot;an article liberally salted with nonsense&quot;.<p>On the other hand, you are also not the expected audience. While this isn&#x27;t related to the quotes you gave, in general it takes time to know what everyone in the field is expected to know. Many of the dense or complex parts might be built on ideas that the expected reader will understand, but you might not. Or from the other perspective, I&#x27;ve read papers where the author goes on and on about some basic idea, and I&#x27;m mentally yelling &quot;get on with it!&quot;<p>You might try reading papers from Science or Nature, often available in print form at a good city library or local college library. Those are both cutting-edge and often clearly written.