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The fundamental issue is that papers are often incremental, that is, they build upon some previous work, which is thereby referenced. The issue this creates is
by alok-g 13y ago
The fundamental issue is that papers are often incremental, that is, they build upon some previous work, which is thereby referenced. The issue this creates is that the papers become hard to follow for anyone who is not already familiar with the previous work in the cited papers. Even if someone goes on to read the referenced papers, it often does not help as the problem is recursive.
This keeps on happening till the research becomes old and mature enough for someone to write a book on the topic which then is nearly self-contained (or assumes some prior background like mathematics, or undergrad-level courses, etc.). MOOCs are also helping the situation since the instructors create nearly self-contained courses which often also include very recent research results.
To solve the issue you mention, this basic notion may need to be broken, such that each paper explicitly explains its subject matter without relying too much on the references. Since much research does not go anywhere, this may be a premature optimization really though.
A thing that does bother me, and signifies the extent to which what you say is true is that "talking" to the authors of these papers nearly always delivers those good insights within a few minutes that you would not get after spending an hour on the paper they wrote.
- alexholehouse 13y agoA thing that does bother me, and signifies the extent to which what you say is true is that "talking" to the authors of these papers nearly always delivers those good insights within a few minutes that you would not get after spending an hour on the paper they wrote. This. A thousand times this. I'm not talking about technical language - there are often (if not constantly) times when technical language is required to convey a precise meaning within the context of a paper. All I'm talking about here is the use of complexity where it's not required. It's a comment on the quality of writing.
- alok-g 13y agoWith some exceptions like Osmium wrote below, I do not think the authors are using unneeded complexity purposefully. I think complexity does end up happening still because (A) of the reason I mentioned, (B) them being not as good at explaining [1], and (C) possibly added effort required. Of these, reason A does not apply when talking to the authors in person. I would like to hear if you have further explanations for what is behind this. For example, I read in [2] that reading is much more complex operation for the human mind as compared to seeing or hearing because, assuming you believe in biological evolution, reading and writing came to humans only about 6000 years ago while verbal language and hearing came a few millions years back. I do sometimes find listening to Coursera videos more helpful than just reading the slides, but then feel that this is generally because the slides are often incomplete (they often do not really "say" it). [1] Many people, especially engineers, often lack good presentation skills. I am extrapolating this to writing since that sounds natural even though I do not have not directly experienced this. [2] http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-Interface/dp/012375030X/ http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-In...