Originally Posted by Botnst

It is a bifurcation that has been going on ever since professional scientific and engineering journals began back in the 19th century.

Before that, researchers depended on personal correspondence and prided themselves on maintaining great lists of like-minded researchers to disseminate discoveries and news of other's. This was often rambling, lengthy letters with no standardization of format. However, because they were not succinct, they were highly readable.

Gradually, professional journals came into being. At first they were often chatty and speculative. But as page costs increased, chattiness decreased. Also, readers wanted to get to the 'heart of the matter' and not be distracted by chatty speculation. Eventually the present-day, highly stylized journal articles arrived, only read by the most dedicated subscribers. Few lay people would be interested in taking the time to decipher the dry, often poorly written professional articles.

But take heart, scientific publication is undergoing a revolution due to the internet. There is a growing movement of new pubs with very low, or no page costs. I have noted (especially in the natural history type stuff) an increase in descriptive text and an increase in general readability. May this trend continue,e xpand, and overtake the professional print journals! Plus, my cheapest print journal costs me $130/year. Tax deductible, but golly, how many can I subscribe to? 3. That's it for me. Wish I could take 2-3 more but a man's gotta eat.