> Your intended audience will understand a point, and want you to go further. But the referees are often not the intended audience. How do you know this? Like

> Your intended audience will understand a point, and want you to go further. But the referees are often not the intended audience. How do you know this? Like both you and OP, I've had my writing misinterpreted by reviewers. These reviewers may not be experts in my precise niche, but reading research is part of their profession. If even they misinterpret it then it is likely I was not clear enough. I have no reason to believe that experts in my niche would not also misinterpret it, and there's no way to verify this once the work is published. Furthermore, vocabularies and terminology in a field can change. I find it very confusing when a paper from today and 15 years ago are using differing definitions for the same term. As such I think defensive writing is a good practice, and I'm not sure why making your work more readable is ever a bad thing. > when you would really just like to go into details on what's cool about the new type of mask, for people who actually care about better masks. Defensive writing wouldn't stop you from doing this. It would ensure that a wider audience (across fields and into the future) can benefit from your proposals