If you thought I was done open access, think again. The taunting of the journal impact factor beast in recent posts was necessary because it is blocking the path to free dissemination of the research literature and the omnivorous creature has somehow to be slain.
But thanks to an email I received this morning, I want to loop back to another aspect of open access that I wrote about in New Scientist: its potential, through broadening of the readership, to improve scientific writing. As a small test of the idea, I invited readers to have a look at my most recent open access paper on the structure of a key protein from a mouse virus. I felt we had made some effort to write plainly and wanted to see what people might make of it.
The email was from Mary Lush at Monash University in Australia who wrote to say that her students had taken up the challenge. I was glad they had done so, not least because even in the web-wired world we take so much for granted, it gave me a warm feeling to learn that my words were being dissected on the other side of the globe. The students made some interesting points which I have taken the liberty of posting below, along with my interleaved responses (in brown). You may want to have a quick look at the abstract and introduction to the paper to get a sense of the students’ comments.
Dear Stephen,
I decided to take you at your word and get students to evaluate your article in PLoS ONE.
Background: These are all highly competent 2nd year science students but some have no biology. They are in the process of tackling primary articles. We spent part of a tute reading the New Scientist article and then looking at PLoS ONE.
1. On the proposition that articles can be written so that they are both a contribution to science and intelligible to a wide audience. Students thought this was an impossible task. They observed that it was hard to do without loss of precision.
That is an astute observation. I don’t think theres a realistic prospect of bending the scientific paper completely to two tasks, or two audiences. It’s primary function is for the dissemination of scientific ideas among experts. Though even here there is a challenge. Most people write for other scientists whom they presume to be expert in the same field. Such an approach may put off scientists from outside the immediate discipline (so closing down inter-disciplinary opportunities), never mind the general public.
However, I retain the hope that the move to open access will stimulate authors to think a bit harder about the possibility that they may have a wider audience than previously. Some judicious tweaking of vocabulary may therefore be beneficial (as discussed below). Also I would argue for the inclusion of a ‘lay summary’ in all papers.
2. Did the authors succeed? Students wondered how wide the audience was supposed to be. The students thought the introduction was much more comprehensible than the title and abstract. One or two thought that the introduction was as good as could be hoped and that with the aid of a dictionary (and time), something could be gleaned from it.
Nice to hear that the introduction was found useful. The abstract is difficult to pitch broadly because there is a severe restriction on the word count. One is trying to maximise the info content so the temptation to opt for space-saving jargon is irresistible. However, a lay summary might solve that and gain a few more eyeballs for the introduction.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea that readers should sometimes find they have to reach for a dictionary (much easier in this wired world).
3. Specific changes. The problem with the abstract and title is, for the wider audience, that they are very difficult and likely to put people off before they get to the better parts. One group reworded the title to ‘Structure of a mouse enzyme-product complex revealed by chance crystallisation’. The words ‘mouse’ and ‘chance’ were debated. ‘Mouse’ was not resolved. ‘Fortuitous’ might be preferable to ‘chance’.
OK ‘adventitious’ was maybe posing a little and ‘fortuitous’ would have been a better choice. The problem with the students’ re-working of my title is that it has changed the sense. The enzyme is not from a mouse but from a virus that infects mice (proper name: murine norovirus). That said ‘a mouse virus’ would have been too generic – there are many different viruses that can infect mice.
The students made valid points. I think we agree there are no easy answers to the problem of reaching expert and non-expert audiences; but the problem deserves attention and I hope will be more exposed by open access.
Curiously and coincidentally, a book review by Barton Swaim that also appeared today made me realise that if the drive to open access can break the hypnotic hold of journal impact factors, it could provide additional freedom for academics to write more creatively. The book, Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword, is a plea (and a guide) to authors seeking to escape the rigid protocols that bind too many of us.
Swaim describes current practice with brutal and disarming economy — “Academics don’t write to be read; they write to be published” — and goes on to identify the source of the problem:
Bad writing is (to use a once-fashionable term) institutionalised…
Supervisors typically preach stylistic caution […]; they want their students to demonstrate mastery of disciplinary norms, not to push against disciplinary boundaries. Editors and referees, likewise, are often more intent on self-cloning than on genuine innovation or empowerment. Peer-reviewed publications, meanwhile, offer a range of stylistic models that are at best unadventurous and at worst downright damaging…
How much of this poor writing practice is due to the rules of the impact factor game? How much freer would we feel if our main aim in writing was not to strain for a false measure of approval, but to tell the most interesting story?
Interesting post Stephen. I would argue that the style required for glossies with high IF is very different from more specialised journals. The glossies tend to want bold statements and broad strokes that are easily digestible, while losing some important detail. Technical journals seem to require a level of exposition that is of interest to only a very narrow audience.
With greater engagement of #OA I think there is an opportunity to break out of these strictures and be more creative with the format and style as there is greater potential to reach a wider Nom-expert audience.
I don’t know what the way forward will be, but the model of PNAS, with short synopses and more detailed technical versions may be a good start.
Not sure that the ‘glossies’ succeed in that endeavour. Have you ever read a Nature paper from outside your field that you found accessible? In their defence they do provide News & Views for selected articles and a short, simplified summary of each paper in the front matter.
The fact is that we use jargon as a shortcut. All communities do the same as a tool for efficiency. If you do not know the vocabulary, you are excluded. A number of years ago various granting agencies in Canada started requiring lay abstracts and one or two lay members (i.e. non-experts from the public) were invited onto review panels. Their job was to observe the review process but also to read the lay abstract. 90% of these were awful. Instead of EGFR, the author put in receptor protein kinase. Even the few well thought out lay abstracts were faulty as they were criticised for not providing precision. It’s a problem and likely means that while we should aim for comprehension by a broad scientific audience, this cannot be at the expense of accuracy and brevity. Acronyms are a bane but they contract repetitive names and can help speed flow IF they are not overused.
We certainly do not pay enough attention to style and readability. I co-wrote a (glossy) review a couple of years ago on signalling cross talk and was surprised by a few emails commending my writing style. Positive feedback such as that is a great way to enthuse writers. So I heartily commend your efforts to increase accessibility through understanding!
Oh, brevity is still a virtue, though your other points are well made. I think many lay summaries are badly written because they are cobbled together at the last minute and may often be written as a direct ‘translation’ of a technical summary. I know I have done this myself in the past and it’s the wrong approach.
I did try to break out of the mold with a more innovative approach to the lay summary in a grant application a couple of years back. I was commended by the committee for my efforts but alas didn’t get the money.
One grant I apply for gives no feedback at all, so you’ve no idea why they rejected your application and hence how you might do better. While understandable in some respects (workloads…) it’s maddening in other respects.
Loose thought on a Friday evening (i.e. don’t bite me!):
Some medical journals have the editor write a summary for the wider audience. These can also include critiques of the work and what I read as a justification (of sorts) for publishing the paper. Some of these summarises aren’t too bad, to my reading. I think one thing may help is that on one hand the editors have enough expertise to understand the paper but on the other are less liable than the authors to assume knowledge needed in writing a summary. Perhaps one ‘solution’ might be for editors to write the lay summaries? (With them checked by the authors for basic accuracy?)
I’d prefer the authors do it, but if this is better… – ?
It’s one solution (and sound similar to practice at Nature, though their summaries are extremely brief — they are included underneath the paper title in the online table of contents).
Like you, I’d prefer authors to do the summaries, if only to make them think.
“if only to make them think.”
Ha.
I quite like the approach of the medical journals, though, in that it brings the editors into play rather than have them in an ‘invisible’ infrastructural role behind the scenes.
Interesting experiment, Stephen.
I’m interested by Jim Woodgett’s comment on lay abstracts (well, after all, he’s just across the street from me). I occasionally write these and it’s always a challenge to write in a truly non-specialist way without feeling that the result is so totally simple in language as to be off-putting to the review panel. I’m never sure quite where the balance lies – and it probably varies from funding agency to funding agency.
It would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone in, say, public affairs, or corporate communications, who spends all their time summarizing difficult material for non-specialist audiences.
The tutorial class has just met again and there is one thing to add. Stephen and I had one more email exchange after he posted the original exchange in this blog.
The title of his PLoS ONE paper was “Structure of a Murine Norovirus NS6 Protease-Product Complex Revealed by Adventitious Crystallisation”.
My point in the later exchange was that groups of words such as “Murine Norovirus NS6 Protease-Product Complex ” are very difficult to decipher because it is hard to work out which words qualify which – if it is not your field that is. In the subject that my students are doing, they have to establish that they understand the content of the words they use, so they can’t readily get away with using a string like that.
Stephen suggested a rewording “Structure of a protease-product complex revealed by the fortuitous crystallisation of the NS6 protease from a mouse norovirus”. The students thought this was a significant improvement.
It is easy to give lip service to improving writing, much harder to actually do it. I thank Stephen for being so responsive to this class.