Time for Academic Writing to Evolve

Here is a very nice article I stumbled while surfing the web. Time for academic writing to evolve, a leap from dull and boring writing towards a more modern and attractive style. 

Please read, discuss and share.... 

Here is a small sample of the article, click here for full article [Source Elsevier]. 

"Communication is a vital part of the academic process: sharing results with your peers means your research builds the knowledge base, adding to our understanding of the universe and everything that goes on inside it.

So why does the writing have to be so dull?

Research articles can be near enough impenetrable for most people, but even when readers do understand them, many are written in such a boring, unappealing way that they’re not exactly engaging page-turners. Does it matter?

Academic papers can sometimes bore you to sleep (well, Oliver Goodchild, a student at the University of Chichester, UK, isn't nodding off just yet in this staged photo by Lucy Goodchild van Hilten).


As researchers, we like to think we’re creative, but in my opinion the scientific community is a very conservative place in reality. We repeat the same formulae over and over, including when we’re writing articles. 


My hypothesis is that people often want to do things the way the greats do them – you can see this in music, for example, with people emulating their guitar heroes. Every once in a while there’s a revolutionary person, and all of a sudden everyone is following their new formula. 


Diversity is one of the things I’d like the most. I don’t only listen to jazz, or rock, or classical music, just as I don’t only like one style of article. Something I would never say is ‘this is the formula that everyone should be following.’ We need to get away from the idea that there is just one way of communicating a paper." [Source Elsevier]. 

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