[jleyank]

There is a tradeoff here. If you want terse, field-specific papers without introduction and/or definition of terms they will be essentially incomprehensible for those not knowledgeable about the field. If you want things to be more generally accessible, a brief (!) explanation of the point and basis of the paper is helpful.

That said, I would like to see papers that actually provide a return for the time spent reading them. Teach me something that I can use if I'm familiar with the discipline. Make sure it's actually generally applicable rather than an artifact of the data. Do proper statistics and/or testing of the idea. Show it's not just an LPU (least-publishable unit) that resulted from running tutorials from the vendor.

There's a tremendous push to publish as it's the currency of academic and much professional life. I've done methodology all my working life, and the good papers are joys to read. They provide insight for new techniques, things which I can understand and apply and build upon. There's test data, so I can check that the paper and any work I do based on the paper is robust.

They unfortunately quite rare. I think editors use me as a hatchet man for me-too papers, or that's all people write anymore. Yeah, the goal is to get one's students trained and employed and the grants obtained but please, please write things that are worth the time of reading them.