One of the challenges of the academic world is the many and varied styles of writing - from business-like and down-to-earth, to highly abstract, intense, long-winded or incomprehensible to the average reader of the English language.  It must be said - even your lecturers find some of the readings obscure, confusing or downright mysterious.  They sometimes have difficulty understanding the meaning of what their colleagues are trying to say, as the linked article demonstrates: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n24_v12/ai_18400885/