Credit: iStockphoto
By Bea Realist
Department of Arcane Abstrusities, University of California, Irvine
references
1. 'Professorial Pathology' by E. U. Rieka, A. B. Surd and I. M. Pedant, Journ. Academic Backstabbing Vol 3, 1980.
2. Explaining Asimov (Twelve Volumes) by The National Academy of Sciences, 1981.
abstract
A new formulation of the traditional academic paper is considered. The way scholars really read scientific papers is discussed. This paper itself is written in the new method herein proposed. Studies among the author's friends indicate that reading time for most scientific literature can be reduced three-fold by use of this method. For some papers, reading time approaches zero.
Introduction
Everyone knows that scientists write badly - everybody, that is, except scientists. They think they're merely being precise and orderly, and everyone else on the planet is either (a) illiterate, (b) sloppy, (c) a humanist, or (d) all of the above. (Ref. 1) In some cases, of course, the individual scientist is not well acquainted with the English language. (In the opinion of English scientists, this frequently explains the unintelligible papers of Americans.) Avoid these papers.
The scientist is, by his reliance on the passive voice, hobbled, leading to sentences like this one, in which the subject, a lumpy noun, is acted upon by pallid adjectives and wan verbs, all without ever saying exactly who the action is done by, so that the sentences get longer and longer as you read and never seem to end, even when there is clearly nothing more to say in the sentence, at which point the reader sometimes gets a meager little semicolon; this gives him a rest, so that he can go on and read another long phrase without really learning anything more, because the writer's hand has kept on moving even though his brain is disengaged.
What to do? Straightening a scientist's syntax is like unsnarling week-old spaghetti - sticky and unappetising. (There are exceptions; see Ref 2.) Far better, then, to change the overall packaging of the sentences. Scientific papers are written like elaborate lab reports - first A, then B, on to C, plodding on to the conclusion like a dray horse. They assume the reader is fascinated by the pearls of wisdom that ooze through the barnacle-laden sentences. Fruit buried beneath the aspic of grey rhetoric is seldom tasted. The sad truth is that hardly anybody ever reads a paper all the way through. A study by a British physics journal showed that the average number who get through the whole paper was 0.5 - and that included the author! Apparently, most scientists can't bear to reread their own work.
In this paper a new scheme for paper-organising is proposed. It does not rely on weaning scientists away from the passive voice sentence, like that last one. Instead, we should recognise how scientists actually read.
Our calculations, statistics, and closely-reasoned analysis appears in the body of the main text. First we summarise our results with merciful brevity.
Conclusions
While reading a scientific paper, scientists are led by two needs: (a) ego and (b) desire for information. Our research shows that the former always predominates. Therefore, papers should be organised to satisfy this. The preferred scheme follows:
1. TITLE
Maximise trendy buzz words, even if irrelevant. (Indeed, some will misread this non-connection as going over their heads.) Try to include many verbs that end in -ise and -ishness.
2. AUTHOR'S NAME
Avoid initials. People remember actual names. Let your students be represented by their initials if they want; readers will assume they are nobodies.
3. REFERENCES
The most important part of the paper, yet the most neglected.
References cited must contain a broad spectrum of sources, to insure the greatest probability of naming the reader, and especially, of saluting the referee. Use multi-author papers to maximise the number of people mentioned. Corral any paper even slightly related to your field; Nobel winners' papers are of course preferred, no matter how thin the connection.
A scientist will always give greater attention to colleagues who cite him, if only to find where in the text you mention him. Thus the best strategy is to cite everybody you can but place the citations in an unlikely place in the paper. They would then have to read carefully to find it, and so might even discover what the paper is about. The highest-risk strategy is to cite someone in the list of references but not in the text. Then he will have to read the whole paper. The disadvantage, of course, is that he will be livid with rage and frustation by the time he finishes. But at least he will not forget you!
4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Another important ego-feeding ground. Thank the big names in your field, even if your sole contact with them was toting coffee at a conference three years ago. The list should be lavish, implying close connections with all the movers and shakers. Avoid mentioning dead people; they can do you no more good, and their rivals are still around. If space permits, include those who actually helped you.
5. GRANT REFERENCE
Your grant monitoring officer will always look for this, so put it early. Others will want to know what agency got suckered into paying out.
6. INTRODUCTION
Here you explain what you plan to do. Promise a lot. Few will reach the main text to see if you actually did it.
7. CONCLUSIONS
Always overstate your results. This is a firm rule - everyone will expect it, anyway.
Claim certainty where you have vague suspicions. Use statistics as an art form, not as a serious check on your work. Why be a sceptic about error bars, after all?
Graphs proudly showing agreement between theory and experiment should be prominent. Only in a footnote (tiny type!) should you explain that the theory has been scaled to the experiment in the first place, the coordinates multiplied by a fudge factor, or other artful dodges.
8. MAIN TEXT
With any luck, there will be no need to actually write this section. Everyone will have turned to the next paper.
Gregory Benford is a physicist at the University of California at Irvine and a noted science fiction author. His most recent novel is The Sunborn.
citing others...
"Thus the best strategy is to cite everybody you can but place the citations in an unlikely place in the paper. They would then have to read carefully to find it, and so might even discover what the paper is about."
Or they will download the pdf, use the search function in their pdf reader to find exactly where (and how often) their work is cited and ignore everything else. The only way to get them to read the rest of the paper is to criticise their work or blatantly misrepresent it, so that they are motivated to carefully dissect your work and publish a scathing rejoinder. This has the advantage of increasing the citation rates of all concerned.
So true.....
This reminds me why i hate being a scientist. Everyone is obsessed with grants, promotions, personal gain, money and their own self serving ego's. I wonder whatever happened to just wanting to know the answer to a question or contributing to the common good. is science the new politics?
Is Science the New Politics?
A previous reader asked "Is science the new politics?"
Absolutely! Far too much politicking and status-seeking, trampling one's enemies while seeking to promote one's friends / allies / consorts. Peer review can often be by anonymous reviewers or rejected out of hand based upon "plausibility" rather than the actual argument / evidence presented.
A delicate balance
These ways of keeping score - citations and the like - are the inevitable consequence of the manangement of science by managers and politicians, not scientists. 100+ years ago the details of every paper were read and dissected at length. Those tales of debates at the Royal Society over current buzzwords like 'evolution' are a lesson to us all in this 'citations batting average' age. Don't be too hard on the scientists who read and write these papers though. mid the politics, money and citations clubs that everyone has to play at to survive the dry langauge in the middle retains the rigour that makes science, unlike other social activities less founded in fact, reproducible and defensible.