{"id":92,"date":"2008-03-25T01:10:01","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T01:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/03\/25\/on_ennui\/"},"modified":"2008-03-25T01:10:01","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T01:10:01","slug":"on_ennui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/03\/25\/on_ennui\/","title":{"rendered":"On ennui"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is most of the literature so damnably boring<\/em>? What is it that makes us get as far as “The cardiac isoform has an additional N-terminal domain that is postulated to provide a greater level of . . . zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”? Darkness follows.<\/p>\n

\nIn EMBO Reports<\/em> (part of the Nature<\/em> group, so I’m allowed to talk about it here) we may have part of an answer. A rather tedious analysis1<\/a><\/sup> claims that there are not enough sensory descriptors in scientific writing. <\/p>\n

\n[S]cientific prose should be enriched with sensory words, provided that they clarify the meaning rather than obscure it, in much the same way as a good statistical data visualization involves the mapping of abstract data into colours and three-dimensional shapes, to help the reader or viewer discover meaningful patterns.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nGreen! Purple! Parmesan! Silken!<\/p>\n

\nAnd then, Frank Gannon says in an editorial2<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n

\nIf scientists were to use a more personal and forthright style, it might not only be more readable, but it could also force scientists to take more responsibility for their results and interpretations\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nOr, put another way<\/p>\n

\n“the possibility could be considered, taking into account various relevant factors, that a modest alteration in the mode of expression could, in due course and after a preliminary and statistically relevant trial period, be phased into the scientific discourse, such as an alteration focusing on the first person, but not exclusively, or a measured change from the passive to the active mode of writing.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAll this ties in rather nicely with my previous rant<\/a> , Martin Fenner’s new group<\/a> and Linda Cooper’s recently revitalized weblog<\/a> .<\/p>\n

\nSo, troops, I want to see excitement in your prose. I want to see wild speculation (and referees, take note: But referees also discourage speculative thinking with such withering lines as: “the extrapolations in the discussion are not supported by the data presented.”<\/em>[2]). I want to be thrilled by your research as I know you are.<\/p>\n

\nI want to see sentences such as Our neural system is therefore an eclectic ensemble of disparate pieces of hardware, which are perfected for solving specialized problems, such as the detection of potentially threatening bilateral vertical symmetry<\/em>[1] written in actual English.<\/p>\n

\nI also want a pony, but I’m not going to be too greedy.<\/p>\n

1<\/sup> Rodriguez-Esteban & Rzhetsky<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/sup> Gannon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is most of the literature so damnably boring? What is it that makes us get as far as “The cardiac isoform has an additional N-terminal domain that is postulated to provide a greater level of . . . zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}