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Scientific journals are becoming harder and harder to read according
to the first scientific analysis of the language they use. Increasingly
‘incomprehensible’ articles are alienating the public and cutting scientists
off from important research in neighbouring fields.

Donald Hayes of Cornell University, New York, has found that all the
leading scientific journals have grown steadily harder to understand since
the turn of the century. ‘Science has become inaccessible,’ he says.

In Hayes’s ratings, difficult articles receive a positive score, easy
articles a negative score. Newspapers on average score 0, while comics score
-26. New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ scores an easy-to-read 4.

In the 1930s, Nature and Science, the most prestigious journals for
publishing research, had scores close to 0. They were as easy to read as
newspapers and research papers were accessible both to other scientists
and to the general public. But by 1950, Science scored 5 and Nature scored
nearly 20. By 1980, Science scored 15 and Nature over 25. By 1990, Science
was scoring 28 and Nature 31.

Hayes finds the same trend in all the leading specialised journals,
from biology to astronomy. ‘Even researchers working in related fields cannot
read these articles any more,’ he says. ‘The articles are just too hard.’

Hayes rates articles by examining the frequency with which authors use
common, and not so common, words. Each of the 10 000 most common words in
English is ranked according to its frequency in everyday use. For example,
the word ‘the’ is top of the list. To estimate the difficulty of an article,
Hayes counts the number of times the article uses each word.

The simple language of comics includes few rare words and many common
words. Difficult scientific articles include a lot of obscure words and
jargon. ‘Research papers leave out most of the words ranked between 100
and 1000,’ says Hayes.

The cause of the difficulty is the increasing degree of specialisation
in science. ‘Specialisation has brought great rewards,’ Hayes says in his
report in last week’s Nature. ‘But the broad consequences are that ideas
flow less freely across and within the sciences, and the public’s access
to (and maybe trust in) science is diminished.’

But Hayes also speculates that journals may have deliberately made their
articles harder. ‘It seems that editorial policy may have had something
to do with it,’ he says.

John Maddox, editor of Nature, acknowledges that research papers in
the journal have become harder to read over the years. But this reflects
the way scientists write, not an editorial decision, he says.

‘ŮÉúСÊÓƵs have ceased to care about communication,’ says Maddox. ‘They
are more concerned with publication, just to keep their jobs. If you are
dismayed you should read the papers when they come in. They are often changed
entirely out of recognition.’

Mike Green, a leading expert in string theory, one of the most abstract
theories in particle physics, believes it is impossible to communicate advances
in his field in ordinary language. ‘It is not possible to explain theories
of quantum gravity at a level which a biologist could criticise,’ he says.