Dear scientists,
Please, for the love of God, please, make your papers more understandable.
Fuck you
Sincerely,
A college student on the verge of tears
I’m writing a manuscript rn and every single piece of feedback i’ve gotten has boiled down to “use more technical language” and “be more formal”, and I have been actively going “i will not be doing that, thanks” but my GOD do they not like it.
update: i cant believe this is actual literal feedback i actually recieved
OK so this is a genuine issue in scientific communication where a paper requires very Precise language, and because people aren't really used to writing that, they crutch on rules of Formality, because they've never been taught how to write with Clarity.
In the above example, 'huge' is not a very precise term. Could mean anything from "lots" to "About the size of a battleship" to "bigger than expected". Not a very precise term. I'm not sure what OP's field is, but they should probably be using a word that's more specific like "Statistically Significant Differneces" instead of "Huge differences", or maybe "Widespread Impact" instead of "Huge Impact". Whoever is providing critique here should say "the use of 'huge' here is imprecise and can confuse what you're talking about, please use a more specific descriptor".
What people generally are asking for when they want something 'understandable' is Clarity. Complex topics are perfectly fine, but they need to be explained clearly. Purdue has a good guide here, which I'll share the outline of, because it's genuinely good advice for many genres or writing:
- Go from old to new information and keep the timeline straight. No Dr. Who Plots.
- Use Transitional words when bridging concepts. Words like however, therefore, in addition, also, but, moreover, etc.
- Keep your sentence structure simple, and mind where you put subordinate clauses. This is really hard for ADHD people who srt of tend to zig-zag across concepts, but in general, it's better to have several simple sentences than one huge rambling one.
- Use Active Voice. Good: "The Comittee decided to postpone the meeting". Bad: "A descision was reached to postpone the meeting by the comittee"
- Use Parallel Contructions. If you're comparing several things, use the same gramatical structure to describe each thing.
- Avoid Noun Strings. Good: "These projects will stimulate investments" Bad: "Investment Stimulation Projects"
- Avoid using the noun version of verbs. Good: "The Plan was implemented sucessfully." Bad: "The implementation of the plan was sucessful."
- Avoid Multiple Negatives. Double negatives are confusing as hell, triple negatives are worse.
- Chose Action verbs over forms of "to be". Good: "TV can report on events much faster than newspapers." Bad: "One difference between TV and newspapers is the relative speed at which they can report on things."
- Avid Unclear Pronoun References: If you use terms like It, They, He, She etc. make sure it's very clear who or what that pronoun is referring to.
It is not enough for you to understand what you mean. You must write so clearly that it is nigh-impossible for others to misunderstand you. Take every sentence and ask yourself ‘if this became a popular post, how would people misinterpret this’? Find the sentences that are not excruciatingly clear and rearrange them. If you find the same types of comments coming back on your work, look at them and ask yourself ‘what am I consistently writing that can be misinterpreted, or suffers from a lack of clarity? How can I more accurately convey what I mean?’
The example I like to use when I’m mentoring is the directions on the back of a bottle of shampoo. ‘Wash. Rinse. Repeat.’ Ok, seems simple enough. But let’s see where we could go wrong.
- Wash what? Right, reminder to the editor of the technical document, every verb needs to be attached to its noun clearly.
- Rinse - with what? Is rinsing your hair with champagne the newest celebrity craze? Again, ‘rinse’ needs to be attached to the noun ‘rinse with water’. Preferably specified as shower water.
- Repeat - for how long? (Lizzie Maguire movie voice: You know how the shampoo bottle has directions, right? Lather, rinse, repeat? I don’t repeat.) Any action must be defined by length, as well as a milestone given when its done. For academic papers this is the conclusion, or continued questions post experiment, or simply place where you end the paper. For writing technical directions you want to define the successful project outcome. Is the project complete when every deliverable is turned in? (No, bad, you’re making a mistake.) OR is the project complete when every deliverable is tested, the test returns a defined successful outcome, errors or problems have been mitigated, and a corrective action plan has been developed for future errors? (Good, pass go, accept the project as delivered.) Also, when is it done? ‘We accomplished this experiment in a week’ - no, I don’t know what a week is. Monday to Friday? Wednesday to the following Wednesday? 12:01am Monday est. to 11:59pm Sunday est?
- But then you have to specify when the actions are taking place. Should a shower be taken every morning at 7:30 am? Every calendar day, or every business day when you have to leave the house? Or can the shower be taken at any time - but must specifically be taken when you are unclean? If that’s the case, define the parameters for determining when you are unclean. For your academic paper this is the defined range and scope of your work. Does this drug work for every potential illness? Or specifically this range of stomach bugs?
- Who is involved? For your academic paper you need to specify the individuals involved clearly, so that they can’t be mistaken for each other. Specify who did what, and separate the order of the actions and the tools used by each individual. Shorten your sentences if you have to. I can’t tell you the number of papers I’ve read where the author, in citing previous efforts, failed to explain the chronological timeline explaining which predecessor was responding to which other predecessor’s research.
- Define your nouns. What kind of shampoo? ‘The digsite’ - no, stop and explain where/what/size/timeframe etc. ‘The software’ - no, what exactly are you using? ‘Review of the previous literature’ - ok you had better say what previous works exactly. Let’s say you’re writing about the interactions of multiple drugs in a study. It’s better to name each drug when it appears in a sentence if there’s potential that they might otherwise be confused. Your reader should never have to guess which noun you are referring to.
- Use firm numbers. Also, timelines and measurements are not intuitive. You need to state exactly what you mean. Seven calendar days is a different length of time than seven business days, so the statement ‘the project was completed from start to end in seven days’ is not a clear technical statement. A year can be measured as a calendar year (Jan. 1 - Dec. 31), a fiscal year (Oct. 1 - Sept. 30), a period of performance or contract year (ex. a contract year of 3/1 - 2/28), a school year, etc. Were your experiments conducted using fahrenheit or celsius measurements? Miles or kilometers?
- Don’t be wishy-washy. You shouldn’t ‘think’ or ‘feel’ or ‘guess’ or ‘suppose’ your hair is clean or the experiment achieved sorta-X or your conclusion is kinda like Y. Be firm!
