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Nature 423, 376-378 (22 May 2003) | doi:10.1038/423376a
Scientific literacy: Clear as mud
Jonathan Knight1
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Abstract
It's not surprising that some academic papers seem to swim before our eyes — the scientific literature has become steadily less accessible over the past half-century. Can we stop this trend, asks Jonathan Knight.
"There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper," wrote Francis Crick in his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis1. The observation is a caution to lay readers tempted to delve into the papers referenced in the book.
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