I'd like to ask why academic texts should be "easy to understand" to begin with.

Let's take journal articles as one type of academic text. It depends on what it is you're trying to do. (1) Are your students doing their own research? (2) Or are they learning about a topic by reading those articles?

(1) In the former case, my own strategy is to make students realise that we actually don't read or try and understand journal articles per se but that we use their findings as building blocks in our own work.

The whole point of the stringent peer review processes that top-tier journals practise is that we don't have to read their articles from start to finish. The abstract tells us what the key findings are and that's all that matters. It's like buying OEM parts, you can be sure you get the required quality.

Understanding those findings (what they mean and their significance) can, of course, be made easier but that explanation, clarification, contextualisation and even, as you suggest, narrativisation does not necessarily have to come from within the article itself.

(2) In the latter case, where it is learning through reading, the expectation is often that our students will read everything but my question is whether journal articles would be the best source to find out about, say, nanotechnology or the basics of music theory.

I'd like to ask why academic texts should be "easy to understand" to begin with.

Let's take journal articles as one type of academic text. It depends on what it is you're trying to do. (1) Are your students doing their own research? (2) Or are they learning about a topic by reading those articles?

(1) In the former case, my own strategy is to make students realise that we actually don't read or try and understand journal articles per se but that we use their findings as building blocks in our own work.

The whole point of the stringent peer review processes that top-tier journals practise is that we don't have to read their articles from start to finish. The abstract tells us what the key findings are and that's all that matters. It's like buying OEM parts, you can be sure you get the required quality.

Understanding those findings (what they mean and their significance) can, of course, be made easier but that explanation, clarification, contextualisation and even, as you suggest, narrativisation does not necessarily have to come from within the article itself.

(2) In the latter case, where it is learning through reading, the expectation is often that our students will read everything but my question is whether journal articles would be the best source to find out about, say, nanotechnology or the basics of music theory.

I recommend the book "How to Write a Lot" by Paul Silvia

This is an excellent question, Professor Kversøy. Boy, do I agree with Antoon DeRycker especially on the inscrutable aspect of research papers. You almost wonder if on purpose the meaning of the Scientific English is obscured. I wrote a parody of this in https://www.emse.fr/~yukna/ENG/scienceE.htm

at the end of the twentieth century that, unfortunately, is still valid today.

Here is an unfortunate example: "Viruses hijack cells in order to replicate, and efficient replication needs an iron-replete host." From Viral infection and iron metabolism published in 2008. This groundbreaking observation should change how we view and act on viral infections from Ebola to AIDS. But the seminal message is not getting through because it is difficult to figure out the meaning.

BTW. One interesting development flying in the face of incomprehension is a relatively new publication

Journal of Brief Ideas

http://beta.briefideas.org/about

Here your article is limited to 200 words or less. I find some of the concepts to be great topics for debate or critical thinking exercises.

I hope this helps.

Interesting question and replies.

What if we take it the other way?

Perhaps see how to enhance the students vocabulary? or skills to deal with the so called 'difficult texts'?

Sure this happens within courses already.

Konstantinos Karampelas Christopher Gerard Yukna Cristian Ramos-Vera Antoon De Rycker I am not looking for "light" academic texts for simple "consumption". I am looking for a deeper understanding, for relevance, for real life connections and for empowerment. I want my students to work hard and get good at what they do. At the same time I do not want my students and me wasting time on unnecessary over-complicated abstractions. Many abstractions are both important, relevant, functional and precise. This is not about getting rid of abstractions. Sadly, in the fields of social science, pedagogy, psychology and philosophy it is not unknown that academic texts can become very hard to grasp. The challenge I am talking about is not about precision. Precision is paramount in science and education. What I am talking about is representation. It is about how we represent something with words and in other ways. The words are not the "thing" in itself. Words can often be used to represents something in multiple ways. I am just looking at ways in which I can improve my skills as a writer of academic texts. In the same way I hope and expect that my students will work hard to interpret, understand and apply what they are reading and learning. In the best possible way. In the same way I think that I have a responsibility to represent the thing I am representing with words, in a way that is understandable, transparent, recognizable, functional and applicable. My goal is always optimal learning conditions for my students. I want them to be the best they can be through hard work and commitment. At the same time I want to facilitate that this learning process can happen in an efficient way. The teaching novel, putting complex theory into a story as a context, can be one of many ways to enhance the learning process.

Dear Kjartan Skogly Kversøy,

If I understand right you want teaching techniques, such as reading and presenting texts, brainstorming, or even role play. The background of these should be academic texts and topics.

Is that correct?

Kjartan Skogly Kversøy Yes, I would wish that for my students (and myself), too: deeper processing of content, seeing connections, exploring real-life relevance, empowerment, working hard. How can we really claim we know what a "marathon" is without having trained for one, run one? Insofar as our academic work (teaching, research, etc.) is a social practice, I think it's the quest for meaning rather than just competence that would ideally drive its reproduction and innovation.

I fully agree there are alternatives to the one-to-many lectures, (disembodied) academic textbooks or YT vids, and that it is possible and desirable to get knowledge, skills and attitudes across to people new to a discipline in more engaging, co-constructive ways. The teaching novel surely is one such method.

Three more points.

From what I've read about various teaching methodologies and from what I have experimented with myself, in order to create those optimal learning conditions, the main obstacle seems to be the pre-conditions to make this a reality. HE is often similar to factory work, with large volumes going through some manufacturing process batch by batch. Anything more exciting than that requires smaller numbers, different time-space configurations, a lot more time overall, also in getting to really know the students. The factory system is also over-ambitious in how much has to be learnt, studied, processed, which results in ticking boxes.

One method I've practised is to invite my students to join me in a team effort. Achieving the course learning outcomes in, say, 14 weeks will then become a team-driven experience, with due dates, meetings, mechanisms for conflict resolution, a focus on getting things done. You mention hard work and commitment. I set out from Lencioni's model of dysfunctional teams (commitment features in that); hard work to me is part of a CQI mindset; I call it "quality never sleeps". It requires a lot of time and energy on my part, though.

Third, one of my mentors once told me "you can't get away from your students' expectations". Anything that is a bit different from the standard range of lecturer-student interactions is likely to meet with resistance; innovation may be perceived as less effective, less efficient because it often fails to deliver that illusion of a quick fix ("just give us the PowerPoint slides to memorise"). So, we will have to educate the students that different forms of education are possible.