About 50% of the journal articles I read in grad school (engineering) were straight-up BS. Unfortunately, it took me about three years to figure out which 50%.

About 50% of the journal articles I read in grad school (engineering) were straight-up BS. Unfortunately, it took me about three years to figure out which 50%. It's sounds like the paper you struggled with was designed to obfuscate the particular conditions under which its results were produced. This may be beause one of the authors thinks there's money to be made from the secret sauce, or because they're misrepresenting how broadly applicable the result is. Or because they're sloppy. Or all three. At a certain point, you have to stop blaming yourself for not understanding the literature. Sometimes it wasn't meant to be understood.