andrecatta<p>Many academic papers could be half as long—or less. But we write them to be self-contained and accessible to a broad scholarly audience, so we repeat background, define well-known terms, pad the argument just to be safe. And then publishers restrict the number of footnotes.</p><p>In an ideal world, a paper would be short, dense, even cryptic—and followed by a massive apparatus of notes explaining context, terminology, prior work, alternatives. Instead, we do the opposite: long main text, minimal notes</p><p><a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/AcademicWriting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AcademicWriting</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Scholarship" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Scholarship</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Footnotes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Footnotes</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/OpenScience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>OpenScience</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Epistemology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Epistemology</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Publishing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Publishing</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/AcademicLife" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AcademicLife</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/WritingThoughts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>WritingThoughts</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/ScienceCommunication" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScienceCommunication</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/ResearchWriting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ResearchWriting</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/AcademicTwitter" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AcademicTwitter</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/MastodonAcademia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>MastodonAcademia</span></a></p>