Science is a collaborative effort by researchers to generate as much knowledge as possible about the physical and intellectual world.

This exchange of knowledge takes place without avoidable inefficiencies wherever possible, such as the duplication of research or misunderstandings.

Collaboration means:

• Requirement to publish
  This refers to the obligation to publish the obtained findings. For example, doctoral theses must be published in Germany.

• Requirement to take note
  The requirement to take note refers to the obligation to be aware of and consider the current state of research or the state of the art when writing an academic text.

The concept of cooperation gives rise to the following requirements for academic texts.

Requirements for academic texts

According to Eco academic works (Eco, 2010)…

• … have a clearly defined subject (Eco, 2010, S. 40)

• … provide new insights into or perspectives to the subject (Eco, 201, S. 41)

• … should be of use (Eco, 2010, S. 42)

• … should be verifiable (Eco, 2010, S. 44)

Reach the target audience

In their 1949 sender-receiver model, Shannon and Weaver (Weaver, 2009, p. 29) describe the path of information (i.e. a message) from a sender (i.e. an information source) to a receiver (i.e. a destination). This transmission may be subject to potential sources of interference (noise sources), as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Shannon and Weaver’s sender-receiver model (Weaver, 2009, p. 29)

Figure 1 shows the Shannon and Weaver model, which was originally developed for telecommunications and is now frequently used in communication psychology to explain the communication process (Röhner u. Schütz, 2012, pp. 17 - 18).

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Figure 2: Shannon and Weaver’s sender-receiver model
(Shannon und Weaver, 1949, drawn by Röhner und Schütz, 2012, p. 18)

As shown in Figure 2, the sender encodes the message, which is then decoded by the recipient. From this, we can infer the sender’s obligation to engage with or reach the recipient. This can be achieved through the choice of language, for example, and is particularly relevant for the author of an academic text. Unlike in a direct conversation, the reader cannot ask for clarification. Therefore, the clear and unambiguous presentation of facts is particularly important in an academic paper. This is primarily achieved through the structure and language used.