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Comment by haimez | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to disagree with the other comments here. It's not because they're paid by the word, or because they've never been taught how to write effectively. It's mandatory to be taken seriously in the circles the author cares about. You have to demonstrate that you know the "stylistic lingo" to get your ideas taken seriously, so that lingo is used.

Simply put, you are not the intended audience for the paper or it would have been written in the style you prefer. See: Malcolm Gladwell.

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> Sociologists have long tried and failed to draw a line between science and pseudoscience. In physics, though, that ‘demarcation problem’ is a non-problem, solved by the pragmatic observation that we can reliably tell an outsider when we see one. During a decade of education, we physicists learn more than the tools of the trade; we also learn the walk and talk of the community, shared through countless seminars and conferences, meetings, lectures and papers. After exchanging a few sentences, we can tell if you’re one of us. You can’t fake our community slang any more than you can fake a local accent in a foreign country.

from a recent HN story, "What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362

I agree with the idea (as has been revealed in a number of fake yet published articles) that you can fairly easily scam non-scientific journals with fake papers. But there are still fake or non-successful scientist papers too.

My theory is the tortured (pompous) language exists to make articles seem more complex and important than they actually are.

Having been in academia myself, I remember "learning" how to write articles by reading other articles. With the exception of one briljant prof I had, most other professors would expect you to write in that style, and if not, that would typically be reflected in your grade. I don't even think this is intentional, they probably learned to write articles the same way.

I remember that the best written articles are typically also from tenured professors leading the field they were writing about, and who would not need to worry about bad peer reviews or other ways their articles would be assessed. (Which leads to the question of they became tenured because of their great communication, or if they are finally free to communicate normally now that they've reached a tenured position)

Yes, exactly. The same phenomenon is seen in fine arts when people apply for grants, fellowships and such. It's very formulaic --and plain language is not going to persuade any of the gatekeepers.

Also:

1) You need to be exactly at the article length limit. Usually means cutting out a lot of detail and gentle explanations you had in your first draft, but might also mean a need to pad a bit.

2) You need to cite everyone who is probable to be your peer reviewer.

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