In an ideal world, academic research articles would be accompanied by adaptations for
students and practitioners. Such adaptations are a useful contribution and are slowly becoming more
common. The FASB has even distributed some “long abstracts” of research papers they feel to be
relevant to standard setting. Unfortunately, few research papers come with such a summary. Most
research is done by professors in colleges and universities whose careers depend on publishing
papers in the most respected journals in their field. Such journals have a limited audience (almost
entirely researchers), and the papers they publish are written for that audience.
Given the differences between academic and professional writing, it has traditionally been
difficult for practitioners to get much value out of current academic research. Most practitioners feel
that academics are wasting their time with topics that do not matter in the real world and most
academics feel that practitioners do not understand their work. The goal of this paper has been to
bring the two groups closer together by providing future practitioners, namely current accounting
students, with enough background that they can read academic research. This paper has provided an
overview of the research process and tips for reading published papers with confidence. We strongly
believe that the combination of practical experience, sound theories, and empirical results will, in
the long run, benefit academics, practitioners, and students alike.