Hmm, I'm obviously dealing with a moron

So, I submitted a paper to a journal some weeks ago and today I received the comments from the reviewers.

The first reviewer, whose comments I've just been reading through, seemed to struggle with my paper quite a lot.

I'm well aware that my writing style is far from perfect. I have a tendency to be flippant, I frequently digress and I often catch myself using sentences that I had thought were erudite but turned out to be simply obnoxious. Plus, I have a stupid belief that essays, like poems, should be aesthetically interesting rather than simply conveying the facts. I fully expected the comments to come back saying that some of my sentences could be clearer and I should move things around.

This person has basically written back saying entire paragraphs are impossible to understand and my argument is obscured. I can handle that. Such things help one grow. Except...

Except that their comments have indicated they aren't keeping up - or don't feel they should have to. It's as if I'm expected to explicitly outline everything I'm talking about in every single paragraph - they aren't pulling information from one section to inform the next, and I can't shake the feeling they're doing this on purpose. They're struggling with the abbreviations I'm using even though I established them properly in the early paragraphs and have been using them consistently ever since, and that also feels like it's on purpose - like they don't feel they should have to glance back at the beginning of the paper to find out what those abbreviations mean, therefore I should either not use them (or I should re-establish them on a regular basis).

I got to a point partway through reading their extensive comments (for which I'm thankful - I like extensive comments), when I realised what they really want is a simpler style. I have written the paper - quite deliberately - in a slightly circuitous fashion. I present some information and then explain why the information is relevant. I repeat this pattern multiple times, and then in the end I tie all the strings together. Each section makes sense eventually, you just have to read it with the assumption that it is taking you somewhere. You don't even have to wait that long for the pay-off. The "what" is clear in each paragraphs (at least, I believe it is), and a couple of paragraphs later you get the "why". This reviewer clearly wants the "why" first and foremost and continually referred to throughout the "what".

They clearly want me to strip it back and dumb it down so that the reader doesn't have to work as hard to figure out what I'm talking about.

Now, I've had a number of people read over this paper before I submitted it - including someone who checks clarity of writing style for a living. None of them had this much trouble understanding what I had written or the points I was making.

The second reviewer didn't even see the need to make comments on the paper - they just said a few things need to be moved around and that's it.

All of this leads me to believe that the first reviewer is not getting it - either because they can't get it or because they don't want to. It's almost like they've decided that it's hard to understand, so they are going out of their way to not understand it.

And, having formed this (possibly unfounded) opinion of the person writing the comments, I find an old character flaw is coming to the surface: I hate dumbing things down for stupid/lazy people. I can't stand the way everything has to be "easy" these days, and I start feeling my inner snob rise to the bait when someone suggests I should write something in such a way as to make sure people don't have to think about it.

Tell me my sentence isn't clear and it will get me thinking about how to do a better job. Tell me to repeat myself multiple times or use simpler words so people don't have to pay that much attention in order to know what I'm talking about and I'll dig my heels in. I'll happily try to write something "better", but I don't want to write something "simpler".

I've talked about this before, in my discussion of graded readers and simplified texts. I hate simplifying things. I'm trying to get over it and understand the role simplified language has in modern society, but I still hate it. The unsimplified version is richer and more interesting. Half the time I'm sure the reader could step-up to the challenge if they wanted to. Why should everything be brought down to the lowest common denominator?

I'm going to change the paper - grudgingly, of course, but I have to address the reviewer's concerns to get the paper published. But there's a good chance I'll be doing it with some spite directed at the reviewer, which is a bad attitude to have.

I have to refrain, reframe and then sit down to fix the paper so that I'm still proud of it, but it's easier for the lazy people to read.

I've also finally got the corrections back for my thesis, and my supervisor also wants me to focus more on repeating myself, so this is going to be a fun week.