Academic and Journalistic

Academic and Journalistic writing, to me, seem to be on complete opposite spectrum from one another. Academically we have always been taught to use a large vocabulary and to write long elegant sentences that are complex in nature and even confuse ourselves when we read our own papers. I remember writing papers and reading through them afterward and thinking how nonsensical it seemed to be. I would have to say I much prefer writing in a journalistic style. The sentences are concise and clear. They don't deal with unnecessary items that are there just to make one's writing more impressive. Journalistic writing just gets straight to the point without all the extra stuff. People wouldn't like to sit down and read an article from a newspaper that looks as if it has been written by James Joyce. People want things to be easier for them. That's why journalistic writing has to be different. The reader has to be able to understand.