In the age of AI, “are lengthy articles still the best way to communicate research?” ask Natalia Tsybuliak and colleagues, all from the Berdyansk State Pedagogical University in Ukraine.
They don’t have any hard evidence, but given the way LLMs create endless content, have produced a new paper suggesting “rethinking traditional publishing practices in favour of clarity, efficiency, and sustainability.”
The authors note that AI is sifting through a mountain of information on our behalf, with an estimated 50 million scientific papers written since the 17th century and an additional 2.5 million published annually.
“This flood of content makes it nearly impossible for researchers to stay fully informed, even within their fields. Lengthy papers, often filled with excessive detail, contribute to this overload, demanding more time and cognitive resources from readers,” the authors write.
“In today’s fast-paced research environment, efficiency and clarity are critical. Adopting a ‘small is sexy’ approach, inspired by Hill’s TED talk ‘Less Stuff, More Happiness’ (Hill 2011), could improve the quality of academic writing.”
The authors suggest
- Keep it clear: “allows more focused, impactful research findings to shine without being buried under unnecessary information”
- The text and just the text: methodology and datasets that now pad out papers should be accessible in common repositories
- Less is green: digital tech generates 4 per cent of carbon emissions. “Reducing the length of articles can help decrease data storage demands and energy consumption”
- Write less for LLMs and more for readers: large language models uncritically reproduce content, encouraging long but insight-light papers.
Practicing what they preach, the authors have produced a concise read. And they don’t need to answer their own question: “is the goal to impress with volume and complexity or to communicate ideas clearly and effectively?“
