Most humanities papers/journals have a much more readable and approachable single column format. The flipside, however, is that they eschew much of the clearly

Most humanities papers/journals have a much more readable and approachable single column format. The flipside, however, is that they eschew much of the clearly defined structure of scientific papers. Scientific paper formatting is because they are still, generally, actually paper-published. 2 column layouts, for instance, are actually quite readable on paper. Online articles tend to have single column styles. There is also very little "fiddling" in academic publishing. Journals/publishers tend to pick a template and styling system and funnel everything into that single style regardless of content. They are usually thinly staffed and want to enforce aesthetic standardization article to article to reduce typesetting workload and to ward off any claims of favoritism.