Ask HN: Why do tech journals have such poor writing?
I am currently doing a case study about a cyberattack. It goes a bit beyond my usual discipline, in that I am needing to read academic articles in computer science/engineering etc… This means some of the referencing styles, and structures of the overall articles are different but even so, I’m finding these articles difficult to read, not because of the subject matter, but because of the way the English language rules seems to be entirely disregarded. These are supposedly peer reviewed journals, and some of the writing conventions, sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc is so terrible, I can’t believe it was actually peer reviewed. If it was perhaps just one article I would assume it was somehow mistakenly published in a draft state by accident, but I discarded 3 articles thinking they were rubbish, now I’m reading another poorly written paper from a tech journal that has an impact factor of 7 and I am becoming confused by the persistent use of poor English across multiple journals. I assume a lot of research in this space is done by people who are not native English speakers, and that some articles are translated maybe as well, but surely the peer review process would iron out some of the litany of errors that make these papers unpleasant to read a best? 0 comments on Hacker News.
I am currently doing a case study about a cyberattack. It goes a bit beyond my usual discipline, in that I am needing to read academic articles in computer science/engineering etc… This means some of the referencing styles, and structures of the overall articles are different but even so, I’m finding these articles difficult to read, not because of the subject matter, but because of the way the English language rules seems to be entirely disregarded. These are supposedly peer reviewed journals, and some of the writing conventions, sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc is so terrible, I can’t believe it was actually peer reviewed. If it was perhaps just one article I would assume it was somehow mistakenly published in a draft state by accident, but I discarded 3 articles thinking they were rubbish, now I’m reading another poorly written paper from a tech journal that has an impact factor of 7 and I am becoming confused by the persistent use of poor English across multiple journals. I assume a lot of research in this space is done by people who are not native English speakers, and that some articles are translated maybe as well, but surely the peer review process would iron out some of the litany of errors that make these papers unpleasant to read a best?
I am currently doing a case study about a cyberattack. It goes a bit beyond my usual discipline, in that I am needing to read academic articles in computer science/engineering etc… This means some of the referencing styles, and structures of the overall articles are different but even so, I’m finding these articles difficult to read, not because of the subject matter, but because of the way the English language rules seems to be entirely disregarded. These are supposedly peer reviewed journals, and some of the writing conventions, sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc is so terrible, I can’t believe it was actually peer reviewed. If it was perhaps just one article I would assume it was somehow mistakenly published in a draft state by accident, but I discarded 3 articles thinking they were rubbish, now I’m reading another poorly written paper from a tech journal that has an impact factor of 7 and I am becoming confused by the persistent use of poor English across multiple journals. I assume a lot of research in this space is done by people who are not native English speakers, and that some articles are translated maybe as well, but surely the peer review process would iron out some of the litany of errors that make these papers unpleasant to read a best? 0 comments on Hacker News.
I am currently doing a case study about a cyberattack. It goes a bit beyond my usual discipline, in that I am needing to read academic articles in computer science/engineering etc… This means some of the referencing styles, and structures of the overall articles are different but even so, I’m finding these articles difficult to read, not because of the subject matter, but because of the way the English language rules seems to be entirely disregarded. These are supposedly peer reviewed journals, and some of the writing conventions, sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc is so terrible, I can’t believe it was actually peer reviewed. If it was perhaps just one article I would assume it was somehow mistakenly published in a draft state by accident, but I discarded 3 articles thinking they were rubbish, now I’m reading another poorly written paper from a tech journal that has an impact factor of 7 and I am becoming confused by the persistent use of poor English across multiple journals. I assume a lot of research in this space is done by people who are not native English speakers, and that some articles are translated maybe as well, but surely the peer review process would iron out some of the litany of errors that make these papers unpleasant to read a best?
Hacker News story: Ask HN: Why do tech journals have such poor writing?
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Reviewed by Tha Kur
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May 18, 2024
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