How shall we write and read in twenty‐first century academy?

Purpose The paper's aim is to point out trends in scholarly communication – both some of the main advantages and the yet unsolved problems that technology – swift communication lines, digitalization and the web – brought into one of the most important activities of academic life: the reading – writing – publishing cycle. Design/methodology/approach The different stages, which eventually give birth to a scientific paper, are described here as thinking – (experimenting) – reading – writing – publishing, and analyzed from handwritten to print to digital texts, with an emphasis on the revolutionary changes that scholarly publishing is experiencing. Findings Thanks to computerization, hypertext and the web, academic life enjoys swift and effortless communication, ease of writing, rapid publishing, almost unlimited access, but there are several uncalled for developments as well. Originality/value The new technologies lack a convenient way of writing‐while‐reading, enhance plagiarism, eliminate traditional archiving methods without offering a satisfactory new substitute (presently) and give rise to a call for a revised way of citation, together with new ways of archiving and storing.