Journal articles are trying to do six things at once — no wonder they’re unreadable

Adam Mastroianni’s blog Experimental History is consistently fascinating. In a recent article on whether conversations end when people want them to, he makes this point, very much in passing: This is a brilliant insight, and it explains so much about what’s wrong with journal articles. When you’re balancing all six requirements, how are you ever going to write something that people are going to actually enjoy reading?