"Why is academic writing so academic?"

This post could as well be put in the systems collaboration forum as there are reasons to the how and why of silos and the systems that feed them and frustratingly perpetuates them. 

I find it resonates for me with my own academic discipline of social work,  which some may find surprising for a profession focused on "the person and their environment."  Understanding a bit better the realities of "the other," ---the silo across from my own silo; actually puts some substance onto our words of "transformation."

17 years or so it takes for evidence to become practice?  That is, if it doesn't fall through the cracks... Could this writing for the purpose of impressing "very small groups of people" not be one of the main issues?  Especially if these "small groups of people" really have no influence over what can actually be done with this evidence/research. They simply approve whether it is good/not good and it gets put on a shelf for time unknown until someone hopefully is looking for that exact information to inform their own research or evidence needs.  

What good is research evidence if no one knows about it?  Or it's written for such a niche group of people that the rest of the world is either unaware or can't read it because of clique-y jargon?  This is a strong argument for the need for Knowledge Exchange/Translation people in the field to dig for this information and make it accessible so that it can be used and not just collect dust on a shelf.

Thanks for your replies, Bill and Amy. What I find particularly interesting about the article is the notion that there are larger, structural forces shaping the way academic prose gets written. I find this line especially sharp: "If journalists sound friendly, that’s because they’re writing for strangers. With academics, it’s the reverse." Writing for strangers means writing for people who have no obligation to read your work. In other words, writing for strangers forces you to ensure that your every word is pitched at engaging and holding someone else's attention.  

That's not a bad way to approach writing, is it? Not taking your audience's interest for granted?

I have mixed thoughts on this one...

On the one hand, I've read some very inaccessible academic literature in my day, in which the author demonstrates their ability to disengage even the most engaged of readers, and have wondered to myself whether the author even wants readers to understand them, or whether they think it's cool to be obfuscatory.  I've also come across articles in which the author is very much able to take complex ideas, and present them in a clear and engaging manner.  All this, however, is more in reference to making research accessible to people within one's own field, as opposed to the broader population.

On the other hand, I do wonder whether part of this 'make academics less academic' idea comes from the 'wiki-ization' of knowledge, with the expectation that journal articles should be written at a level understandable to the typical internet user, commensurate with their attention spans. And along those lines, I would disagree with the premise that academics are being too academic (except for those really academic ones).  The reality, is that if we expect undergraduates to at least have read the intro and some second-year texts for whatever major they're in, and that academics bring a sophisticated level of nuance, thought, and complexity their ideas, then why should we expect academic publications to be written at a sub-intro-text level?

Having said that, I do agree with the above commenters that there is definitely a role for Knowledge Exchange folks in distilling and making accessible primary source results, and in bridging disparate silos.  There are many books, websites, magazine articles, evidence briefs, research report roundups, etc out there, where this distillation and accessibility have taken place, to the benefit of the end-user.  As the importance of utilizing evidence in practice increases, these roles will become ever more essential.

I also think that part of the solution can be [insert flying pig here] to change the incentive for academic success from the sheer number of publications, to the overall quality of one's work.  But that's a delusion for another day.