The science communication dilemma

[David Wojick]

The science communication dilemma

This is a research note.

Conclusion: The more you convey, the smaller your audience.

Derivation:

Assume there are roughly ten science learning levels (a crude model), as follows:
10. Expert on the topic
9. Expert on a related topic
8. Expert on the field
7. Undergrad degree in the field
6. Two years undergrad in the field
5. High school science on the field
4. Middle school science on the field
3. Second course on the field
2. First course on the field
1. No training in the field

Here is the Science Communication Dilemma: what level to write (or speak) to? The lower the level the more people you can reach, but the less science you can teach. When you write for a given level you cannot use any of the knowledge available at the higher levels. But everyone at those higher levels can understand what you write.

To maximize the science conveyed, write at a higher level. To maximize the audience size, write at a lower level. There is no way to maximize both.

Note that people who follow a field or a topic may have knowledge at a level well above their schooling. Each level is an amount of knowledge, not an amount of schooling.

I have not seen this fundamental dilemma discussed (but I do not follow the field of science communication). I conjecture that few writers consciously write for a specific level, in part because they do not know what the knowledge content of the levels are.

Mind you in important cases the same research is often communicated at various levels, using different channels.

Background: Knowledge content by level is what my big "grade level stratification" project investigated, ten years ago. This is my first publication flowing from that project. We were building a search algorithm, not doing research for publication.

David

David Wojick, Ph.D.
The STEM Education Center
http://www.stemed.info


Sent from my iPad

[Danny Kingsley]

Hi David,

You are correct that there is an inverse relationship between the complexity of your communication and the size of the audience. But it is possible to write about complex ideas in ways that are understandable. New Scientist, for example writes to an intelligent 15 year old. The ideas and concepts in that magazine are sophisticated and not dumbed down. I have been out of the science communication space for a few years now, but used to teach a regular workshop for PhD students on Plain English writing and how to explain your research in understandable ways. This was with the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.

I was teaching journalistic tools such as identifying the who, what, why, where, how, and the most important one that many researchers really don’t get - the "who cares?" statement. The challenge with PhD students (and even Masters students) in this area is they have spent a very long time learning how to write in an obtuse fashion and you have to try and unlearn that. I also realised from early feedback that I needed to explain why this mattered, to counter the “everyone who needs to read my research can read it” concept. By the end of several years I was spending half of my time with the groups on the subject of what you actually *do* as a scientist the further up the chain you go. Spoiler alert - you spend less and less time at the lab bench, and more and more time communicating - writing grant applications, reports, reviewing etc.

A couple of relevant references:

• Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/6529/
• Learn to write badly: How to succeed in the social sciences https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/learn-to-write-badly/416227EB30D7B2E0B7793B0F71F7523C

Glenn - the ‘who cares’ statement is the impact of the work (to hark back to a previous post of yours). There is an increased push in the UK and now in Australia for researchers to consider the impact of their work beyond the academy. After all, researching something because it is an interesting intellectual conundrum is all very well, but in most instances research is being done for some reason - to inform professional practice, or provide evidence for policy for example. Having to report on this changes the way people think about setting up their research projects. Some researchers get it straight away, others struggle with the concept, but those researchers who I have been working with on this (it is one of my current roles) report that they feel involving stakeholders from the outset in research improves the work.

Danny

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Dr Danny Kingsley
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[Glenn Hampson]

Hi David, Danny,

 

You two have pretty much covered it. I would only add that yes (to David), science communication (scicomm) is a very robust and active field, and also that it isn’t limited to just teaching researchers how to write better (although that is often the primary focus---there are, in fact, many different kinds of people involved working on different goals with different tools). In a way, I think it’s also a lot like the open scholarship debate---very diverse, lots of different actors, very important, and zero funding (😊). And it’s probably multiple times larger than the open community---there are scicomm people everywhere, largely ununified, working in a field that is large undefined.

 

With regard to the complexity of writing, I really wish this subject would get more attention. The argument goes that science is complex and requires precise writing to communicate. Unfortunately, precision today is generally taken to mean dense and indecipherable prose---the denser the better. The reality is that some of the most influential science in history has been written in a way that is utterly readable---take Darwin, for instance (although, a tragic caveat here is that Darwin’s work was so readable that it was mis-applied by the masses and resulted in the eugenics craze of the early 1900s and was used to buttress racist philosophies).

 

To illustrate how much science writing has changed, here’s a passage from Scott Montgomery’s presentation at our (SCI’s) 2013 conference on Science and Journals---http://sciencecommunication.institute/journals-science-conference/ (Scott’s full presentation is under the “Language” tab; there are also lots of other great presentations in this archive):

 

1. From the Geological Society of America Bulletin, March 1955. Ernst Cloos---Experimental Analysis of Fracture Patterns: “The importance of fractures can hardly be exaggerated. Most likely, man could not live if rocks were not fractured. The loosening of rocks, formation of soil, and erosion would become next to impossible…”
2. From the March 1985 issue. Joseph Walder and Bernard Hallet---A theoretical model of the fracture of rock during freezing: “The breakdown of rocks by freezing, or frost cracking, has been a subject of great interest to geomorphologists for many years.  Frost action has been considered to be of paramount importance in the development of landscapes…(Refs).” Scott notes here that “A single point to make—among many others—is how the total potential audience addressed has been reduced from all of humanity (in the first example) to geomorphologists, who represent a single branch of the geological sciences.”
3. From the September 2013 issue. Andrea Festa, Vildirim Dilek, Guilia Codegone, Simona Cavgna, and Gian Pini---Structural Anatomy of the Ligurian accretionary wedge, and evolution of superposed mélanges: “The shape and growth of the frontal wedge of modern accretionary complexes repeatedly change to maintain the dynamic equilibrium in the wedge through alternating tectonic and sedimentary (i.e., gravitational) activities (9 Refs).” Writes Scott, “In this case, I would draw your attention to two things in particular, again among many others that could be discussed.  First, the specialized vocabulary (jargon, we might say) of the first two lines determines instantly who may enter here and who would be wasting their time in an attempt to do so.  If you don’t know what the wedge of an accretionary complex is, you are not welcome here.  But also note the authorship of this article.  It is fully international.  Affiliations of the authors include universities in Italy, Spain, and China.  The journal, in other words, may be named the Geological Society of America Bulletin, but it is fully global in the span of its contributors and their subjects.

 

“So to summarize the trends in these three samples,” he writes, “as indicative of scientific discourse as a whole—and I would wager that an overwhelming majority of researchers would agree to this—we see that this discourse has become progressively:

• more stylized, specialist
• less open to the kind of relaxed, colloquial, and literary touches seen in the first example.
• greatly dependent on jargon to carry the weight of meaning.

 

Given these trends, it would appear there is but little chance that journal science will become more accessible to the public, or even to scientists from other fields.

 

What all this tells us, finally, is that the transfer of findings from the journal literature to the public involves not just re-phrasing and selection, but an act of actual translation—remembering that translation always involves interpretation and re-writing.  People able to do this competently, without inaccuracies or misleading exaggerations, can not be found at your local market or grocery store.  Nor do a great many of them exist in media centers.  They are rare and their value should be recognized.”

 

4. And finally, from today. A.K. Abdel-Fattah, K.Y. Kim, M.S. Fnais (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea), “Slip distribution model of two small-sized inland earthquakes and its tectonic implication in north-eastern desert of Egypt”; Journal of African Earth Sciences. “Seismicity of Egypt is attributed to the relative tectonic motion between African, Arabian, and Eurasian plates…The identification of active fault planes in these seismogenic zones is essential for the potential seismic hazard that may carry on the closed urban cities.” “In this final passage,” writes Scott, “we see something quite different than what we’ve been discussing.  Most of the passage is in perfect good, comprehensible English.  But then we encounter the final few phrases, which leave us puzzling.  How did this get past the editors?  In fact, the journal’s editors include geoscientists from the U.S. and other Anglophone nations. The fact is that a sizeable number of journals have begun to publish articles with non-standard English—meaning non-Anglo-American (the standard most widely adopted and followed by the highest prestige journals like Nature and Science).  The degree to which this might expand in the future is difficult to discern.  The reality of World Englishes, meaning varieties of English that have developed around the world through adaptation to different cultural-linguistic settings (e.g. Nigerian English, Hong Kong English, Jamaican English, Indian English, etc.) may well dictate that such flexibility will have to grow.  We will have to wait and see. “

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/96495BAE-A9F6-42E5-9D0E-E1C68F676704%40dannykingsley.com.

[JJE Esposito]

This undercuts one argument for universal OA, making scientific literature available to a wide public audience. I wrote about David's general point in 2008:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0011.203?view=text;rgn=main

Joe Esposito

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/016c01d5a871%2458275080%240875f180%24%40nationalscience.org.

--

Joseph J. Esposito
espo...@gmail.com
@josephjesposito
+Joseph Esposito

[Glenn Hampson]

Hi Joe,

 

Maybe----I guess it depends on whether you think this trend toward complex writing is permanent, necessary, a good thing, or even relevant (given that the data is also critically important). I do think that even in your nautilus model, we won’t extract maximum value from universal OA if all we’re doing is making articles free to read/reuse. For one, what good is open information if you don’t understand it? Also, why should we only try to connect some of the dots?---if we hold the belief that most people are going to have zero interest in and/or need for information at the center of the nautilus, we are basically taking the position that we know where and how the next great breakthroughs will happen.

 

Fundamentally, though, I agree that we need to pause and ask ourselves why we’re doing this, as you’ve done in your article. Where are the needs and the shortcomings? What can be gained by improving communication between disciplines on specific challenges (say, pancreatic cancer research)? What kinds of improved communication are needed (is it clearer writing, or data standards?; better peer-to-peer communication or better research-to-policymaker writing?; on the SCI website we break scicomm into various purposes and categories). There are times when it seems we’re living out an “Emperor’s New Clothes” scenario: “My what a lovely paper you’ve written---so complicated and filled with charts that seem meaningful,” we say, when in fact we’re too embarrassed to admit that we actually don’t have the foggiest idea what the author is saying.

[Rick Anderson]

> With regard to the complexity of writing, I really wish this subject would get

> more attention. The argument goes that science is complex and requires

> precise writing to communicate.

 

That’s definitely one argument, but it’s not the only one. Another argument is that sometimes the science/scholarship being described in an article is irreducibly complex in itself, and can’t be simplified without a loss of content.

 

Another argument is that sometimes the science/scholarship being described can’t be understood without background education that can’t be provided within the context of an article describing a study.

 

None of this isn’t to say that science/scholarship can’t or shouldn’t be written as clearly as possible, of course, and of course there are some kinds of science/scholarship that can effectively be simplified and made more accessible to the lay reader. But I think it’s dangerous to assume that all science/scholarship always can be (without a loss of content).

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Sunday, December 1, 2019 at 11:01 AM
To: 'Danny Kingsley' <da...@dannykingsley.com>, David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>
Cc: "osi20...@googlegroups.com" <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: The science communication dilemma

 

Hi David, Danny,

 

You two have pretty much covered it. I would only add that yes (to David), science communication (scicomm) is a very robust and active field, and also that it isn’t limited to just teaching researchers how to write better (although that is often the primary focus---there are, in fact, many different kinds of people involved working on different goals with different tools). In a way, I think it’s also a lot like the open scholarship debate---very diverse, lots of different actors, very important, and zero funding (😊). And it’s probably multiple times larger than the open community---there are scicomm people everywhere, largely ununified, working in a field that is large undefined.

 

With regard to the complexity of writing, I really wish this subject would get more attention. The argument goes that science is complex and requires precise writing to communicate. Unfortunately, precision today is generally taken to mean dense and indecipherable prose---the denser the better. The reality is that some of the most influential science in history has been written in a way that is utterly readable---take Darwin, for instance (although, a tragic caveat here is that Darwin’s work was so readable that it was mis-applied by the masses and resulted in the eugenics craze of the early 1900s and was used to buttress racist philosophies).

 

To illustrate how much science writing has changed, here’s a passage from Scott Montgomery’s presentation at our (SCI’s) 2013 conference on Science and Journals---http://sciencecommunication.institute/journals-science-conference/ (Scott’s full presentation is under the “Language” tab; there are also lots of other great presentations in this archive):

 

1.       From the Geological Society of America Bulletin, March 1955. Ernst Cloos---Experimental Analysis of Fracture Patterns: “The importance of fractures can hardly be exaggerated. Most likely, man could not live if rocks were not fractured. The loosening of rocks, formation of soil, and erosion would become next to impossible…”

2.       From the March 1985 issue. Joseph Walder and Bernard Hallet---A theoretical model of the fracture of rock during freezing: “The breakdown of rocks by freezing, or frost cracking, has been a subject of great interest to geomorphologists for many years.  Frost action has been considered to be of paramount importance in the development of landscapes…(Refs).” Scott notes here that “A single point to make—among many others—is how the total potential audience addressed has been reduced from all of humanity (in the first example) to geomorphologists, who represent a single branch of the geological sciences.”

3.       From the September 2013 issue. Andrea Festa, Vildirim Dilek, Guilia Codegone, Simona Cavgna, and Gian Pini---Structural Anatomy of the Ligurian accretionary wedge, and evolution of superposed mélanges: “The shape and growth of the frontal wedge of modern accretionary complexes repeatedly change to maintain the dynamic equilibrium in the wedge through alternating tectonic and sedimentary (i.e., gravitational) activities (9 Refs).” Writes Scott, “In this case, I would draw your attention to two things in particular, again among many others that could be discussed.  First, the specialized vocabulary (jargon, we might say) of the first two lines determines instantly who may enter here and who would be wasting their time in an attempt to do so.  If you don’t know what the wedge of an accretionary complex is, you are not welcome here.  But also note the authorship of this article.  It is fully international.  Affiliations of the authors include universities in Italy, Spain, and China.  The journal, in other words, may be named the Geological Society of America Bulletin, but it is fully global in the span of its contributors and their subjects.

 

“So to summarize the trends in these three samples,” he writes, “as indicative of scientific discourse as a whole—and I would wager that an overwhelming majority of researchers would agree to this—we see that this discourse has become progressively:

·         more stylized, specialist

·         less open to the kind of relaxed, colloquial, and literary touches seen in the first example.

·         greatly dependent on jargon to carry the weight of meaning.

 

Given these trends, it would appear there is but little chance that journal science will become more accessible to the public, or even to scientists from other fields.

 

What all this tells us, finally, is that the transfer of findings from the journal literature to the public involves not just re-phrasing and selection, but an act of actual translation—remembering that translation always involves interpretation and re-writing.  People able to do this competently, without inaccuracies or misleading exaggerations, can not be found at your local market or grocery store.  Nor do a great many of them exist in media centers.  They are rare and their value should be recognized.”

 

4.       And finally, from today. A.K. Abdel-Fattah, K.Y. Kim, M.S. Fnais (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea), “Slip distribution model of two small-sized inland earthquakes and its tectonic implication in north-eastern desert of Egypt”; Journal of African Earth Sciences. “Seismicity of Egypt is attributed to the relative tectonic motion between African, Arabian, and Eurasian plates…The identification of active fault planes in these seismogenic zones is essential for the potential seismic hazard that may carry on the closed urban cities.” “In this final passage,” writes Scott, “we see something quite different than what we’ve been discussing.  Most of the passage is in perfect good, comprehensible English.  But then we encounter the final few phrases, which leave us puzzling.  How did this get past the editors?  In fact, the journal’s editors include geoscientists from the U.S. and other Anglophone nations. The fact is that a sizeable number of journals have begun to publish articles with non-standard English—meaning non-Anglo-American (the standard most widely adopted and followed by the highest prestige journals like Nature and Science).  The degree to which this might expand in the future is difficult to discern.  The reality of World Englishes, meaning varieties of English that have developed around the world through adaptation to different cultural-linguistic settings (e.g. Nigerian English, Hong Kong English, Jamaican English, Indian English, etc.) may well dictate that such flexibility will have to grow.  We will have to wait and see. “

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/016c01d5a871%2458275080%240875f180%24%40nationalscience.org.

[JJE Esposito]

I hold to an unpopular view nowadays, that professional work trumps (sorry for that word) volunteerism. I don't fix my car; I hire a professional. I think it's a poor use of resources to take a rocket scientist, sit her down and say, Could we work on your writing, please? Lots of English majors out there to do the dirty work of organizing a narrative, creating the flow of an argument, tipping in examples when they are called for. I think reading Shakespeare, Hillary Mantel, and Italo Calvino is about as good as life gets, but why would I insist that my brain surgeon put in much time on that?

So, no, I don't agree that we will get better writing out of the academy. We may get useful automated writing, but the burden of popular communications lies not with the academy, with a small number of key exceptions (e.g., Jill Lepore, Henry Louis Gates, Stephen Pinker--all at Harvard, BTW). 

As for the emperor's new clothes, is not that true of OA itself? Where is the evidence of its great benefits? I'm open to seeing it happen, but it has not happened yet.

Joe Esposito

[David Wojick]

I do not know what "dumbing down" means but here is what we did and found. Science uses a great many technical terms, because it is talking about things that are not talked about in ordinary language. We catalogued the technical terms taught at each learning level, from first grade through undergrad college. There are thousands.

The principle I propose is that when writing for a given level one should not use a term that has not been learned (unless it is taught when first used). Since the reader does not know the meaning of such terms they will not understand what is said. (Thus our algorithm ranks the learning level of a text based on the most advanced terms used.)

For example, in the U.S. A 15 year old is at the high end of middle school. One then cannot use terms taught in high school, or college, or beyond. In many, probably most, cases these forbidden terms will be necessary in order to accurately explain the research. There will often be dozens of such terms for each specific case. One could go through the journal article and count them, as well as their frequency. This might even be a crude measure of the extent extent to which the science is over the head of the 15 year old. 

This does not mean that there is no way to explain the research to a 15 year old, just that there is a great deal that cannot be explained. It might be interesting to see if New Scientist violates my principle.

If I get a chance I will provide a specific example.

David

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/96495BAE-A9F6-42E5-9D0E-E1C68F676704%40dannykingsley.com.

[Glenn Hampson]

To be clear (which I guess is the whole point here), I’m not necessarily saying that brain surgeons should be able to write like Toni Morrison---not that anyone could, even with a lifetime of training). I also think that’s a misdirection of resources, and unrealistic to boot. I’m saying that the entire science writing enterprise has fallen under the spell of complexity----that any paper not conforming to a certain style won’t be taken seriously. I mean, there’s a reason why all journal papers kinda’ sound alike. It isn’t because all PhD students forgot how to write: it’s that they’ve all been taught that “serious” writing looks a certain way, and “readable” ain’t it. If we can escape from these expectations (requirements?), we might begin to see a lot more creativity and diversity of scientific expression, which might over time lead to new and better norms and best practices.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

[Lisa Hinchliffe]

It might also be that it would obliterate the efficiencies that genre and jargon/technical/precise vocab provide for experts.  

___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/01a201d5a895%2483602f50%248a208df0%24%40nationalscience.org.

[Glenn Hampson]

Sounds like what you’re proposing is a sort of Flesch-Kinkaid reading level measurement specifically for science literature? For lots of complex materials written for the general public (e.g., medical consent forms), the goal is to go no higher on the F-K scale than about the 8^th grade level.

 

http://www.readabilityformulas.com/flesch-grade-level-readability-formula.php

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Sunday, December 1, 2019 3:01 PM
To: Danny Kingsley <da...@dannykingsley.com>
Cc: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The science communication dilemma

 

I do not know what "dumbing down" means but here is what we did and found. Science uses a great many technical terms, because it is talking about things that are not talked about in ordinary language. We catalogued the technical terms taught at each learning level, from first grade through undergrad college. There are thousands.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/33F9F86B-D023-4407-90B2-9D5DB6D3F55D%40craigellachie.us.

[Margaret Winker]

Two points on writing for different audiences that are relevant to medical research, at least:

1) Many individuals affected by particular diseases or whose loved ones are affected by diseases develop a relatively sophisticated understanding of the disease out of necessity, enabling them to read and understand enough of the medical literature to ask intelligent questions about care options (eg, AIDS particularly when treatments were just emerging). Even when news stories are written about the medical literature it is often necessary to read the original study to determine whether the population is relevant to one’s particular situation and what the adverse effects are. Most individuals don't have access to subscription journals to do so. 

2) As noted in a previous similar discussion, a few medical journals provide lay summaries, aiming for no more than about an 8th grade level. In practice it is very difficult to achieve medical writing at this level on the Flesch-Kinkaid scale because of the necessity of using multi-syllable words, if only to define them. In addition to short words, short sentences are also important. 

An example of lay writing is shown at https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001581 (see Editor's Summary). Structuring the summaries "Background, Why Was This Study Done? What Did the Researchers Do and Find? What Do These Findings Mean?" highlights the main points for the reader. It is expensive to have a professional write these, so I believe some journals ask authors to write them and provide instructions, but it really requires a professional to be done well. 

Margaret

Margaret Winker, MD

Trustee, WAME

***

wame.org

wame.blog

@WAMedEditors

www.facebook.com/WAMEmembers

-Views are my own.

On Dec 1, 2019, at 12:32 PM, JJE Esposito <jjoh...@gmail.com> wrote:

This undercuts one argument for universal OA, making scientific literature available to a wide public audience. I wrote about David's general point

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/01ae01d5a896%24e7aa34f0%24b6fe9ed0%24%40nationalscience.org.

[Glenn Hampson]

Off-list, an OSIer with expert-level geology chops has called bulls**t on the examples I emailed earlier---the earliest text was apparently taken from a conference presentation, and the later texts reflect new concepts in geology that weren’t present in 1955. So the trend line toward complexity in this case might be explained away.

 

Therefore, never mind.

 

Take a look at this study instead, showing the increase in F-K score and sentence length over time (across disciplines): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584989/

 

Here’s the main part of the discussion section from this paper (FWIW, not to insist that the increasing complexity point of view is real and unjustified, just to make this point more authoritatively instead of with anecdotal evidence):

From analyzing over 700,000 abstracts in 123 journals from the biomedical and life sciences, as well as general science journals, we have shown a steady decrease of readability over time in the scientific literature. It is important to put the magnitude of these results in context. A FRE score of 100 is designed to reflect the reading level of a 10- to 11-year old. A score between 0 and 30 is considered understandable by college graduates (Flesch, 1948; Kincaid et al., 1975). In 1960, 14% of the texts in our corpus had a FRE below 0. In 2015, this number had risen to 22%. In other words, more than a fifth of scientific abstracts now have a readability considered beyond college graduate level English. However, the absolute readability scores should be interpreted with some caution: scores can vary due to different media (e.g. comics versus news articles; Štajner et al., 2012) and education level thresholds can be imprecise (Stokes, 1978). We then validated abstract readability against full text readability, demonstrating that it is a suitable approximation for comparing main texts.

We investigated two possible reasons why this trend has occurred. First, we found that readability of abstracts correlates with the number of co-authors, but this failed to fully account for the trend through time. Second, we showed that there is an increase in general scientific jargon over years. These general science jargon words should be interpreted as words which scientists frequently use in scientific texts, and not as subject specific jargon. This finding is indicative of a progressively increasing in-group scientific language ('science-ese').

An alternative explanation for the main finding is that the cumulative growth of scientific knowledge makes an increasingly complex language necessary. This cannot be directly tested, but if this were to fully explain the trend, we would expect a greater diversity of vocabulary as science grows more specialized. While accounting for the original finding of the increase in difficult words and of syllable count, this would not explain the increase of general scientific jargon words (e.g. 'furthermore' or 'novel', Figure 6B). Thus, this possible explanation cannot fully account for our findings.

Lower readability implies less accessibility, particularly for non-specialists, such as journalists, policy-makers and the wider public. Scientific journalism offers a key role in communicating science to the wider public (Bubela et al., 2009) and scientific credibility can sometimes suffer when reported by journalists (Hinnant and Len-Ríos, 2009). Considering this, decreasing readability cannot be a positive development for efforts to accurately communicate science to non-specialists. Further, amidst concerns that modern societies are becoming less stringent with actual truths, replaced with true-sounding 'post-facts' (Manjoo, 2011; Nordenstedt and Rosling, 2016) science should be advancing our most accurate knowledge. One way to achieve this is for science to maximize its accessibility to non-specialists.

Lower readability is also a problem for specialists (Hartley, 1994; Hartley and Benjamin, 1998; Hartley, 2003). This was explicitly shown by Hartley (1994) who demonstrated that rewriting scientific abstracts, to improve their readability, increased academics’ ability to comprehend them. While science is complex, and some jargon is unavoidable (Knight, 2003), this does not justify the continuing trend that we have shown. It is also worth considering the importance of comprehensibility of scientific texts in light of the recent controversy regarding the reproducibility of science (Prinz et al., 2011; McNutt, 2014; Begley and Ioannidis, 2015; Nosek et al., 2015; Camerer et al., 2016). Reproducibility requires that findings can be verified independently. To achieve this, reporting of methods and results must be sufficiently understandable.

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Sunday, December 1, 2019 3:01 PM
To: Danny Kingsley <da...@dannykingsley.com>
Cc: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The science communication dilemma

 

I do not know what "dumbing down" means but here is what we did and found. Science uses a great many technical terms, because it is talking about things that are not talked about in ordinary language. We catalogued the technical terms taught at each learning level, from first grade through undergrad college. There are thousands.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/33F9F86B-D023-4407-90B2-9D5DB6D3F55D%40craigellachie.us.

[David Wojick]

I am not talking about complexity, or "density" (whatever that is), of writing. Science necessarily relies on technical terms, which are taught in succession as one learns a field and then a topic within that field. The fewer terms one knows the less one can understand a given piece of research. The number of terms can be quite small.

For example, as a civil engineer I know a great deal of certain sorts of physics, but far less of others. However, my last biology class was in 10th grade so I can understand very little. I just do not know what the key terms mean. 

The reality is that science is communicated to the general public through a very complex diffusion process, and the vast bulk cannot be communicated.

David

[David Wojick]

Agreed Joe. I used to make this point as well, but got shouted down. Mind you one can sometimes read around the not understood stuff and get the gist of an article. I did that a lot as a science journalist. For example, I do not know how the Monte Carlo method actually works, but I have a vague idea what it does, which is generate a probability distribution, I think.

It is certainly true that most people cannot read most articles with comprehensive understanding. Science communication is far more complex than this simple model.

David

<image003.jpg>

[David Wojick]

There is no way around scientists using technical language. It is the only way to talk about what they are talking about. The words we use have the meanings they do because we are trying to say what is true. Words like meson or geodesic are not complicated, but you have to know a lot of highly technical stuff to know what they really mean. Every human activity has its own technical language, not just science.

David

On Dec 1, 2019, at 2:41 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Joe,

 

Maybe----I guess it depends on whether you think this trend toward complex writing is permanent, necessary, a good thing, or even relevant (given that the data is also critically important). I do think that even in your nautilus model, we won’t extract maximum value from universal OA if all we’re doing is making articles free to read/reuse. For one, what good is open information if you don’t understand it? Also, why should we only try to connect some of the dots?---if we hold the belief that most people are going to have zero interest in and/or need for information at the center of the nautilus, we are basically taking the position that we know where and how the next great breakthroughs will happen.

 

Fundamentally, though, I agree that we need to pause and ask ourselves why we’re doing this, as you’ve done in your article. Where are the needs and the shortcomings? What can be gained by improving communication between disciplines on specific challenges (say, pancreatic cancer research)? What kinds of improved communication are needed (is it clearer writing, or data standards?; better peer-to-peer communication or better research-to-policymaker writing?; on the SCI website we break scicomm into various purposes and categories). There are times when it seems we’re living out an “Emperor’s New Clothes” scenario: “My what a lovely paper you’ve written---so complicated and filled with charts that seem meaningful,” we say, when in fact we’re too embarrassed to admit that we actually don’t have the foggiest idea what the author is saying.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

<image004.jpg>

<image005.jpg>

[David Wojick]

Indeed, clarity and technical content are two very different things. Explaining technical findings nontechnically always loses content, namely the content of the technical terms.

The standard definition of a "concept" in philosophy of Language, that I use, is what you have to know in order to use a term correctly. Thus a concept is a body of core knowledge about what the term refers to. A technical concept, such as science is built of, is a body of technical knowledge. People who lack this knowledge cannot have the concept.

David

<image001.jpg>

[Manfredi La Manna]

“This undercuts one argument for universal OA, making scientific literature available to a wide public audience.”

 

I could not disagree more. The fact that some (probably most) of peer-reviewed research is written for a specialist audience and therefore cannot be understood/appreciated by the wider public does not undercut the case for universal OA. The aim of OA is to make peer-reviewed research accessible to anyone interested in it, irrespective of their ability to pay for access.

The discussion about the complexity of scientific writing is a red herring as far as OA is concerned, even though if there were universal OA and ways of monitoring reach some researchers would have an incentive to increase the reach of their work by making it relevant to a wider (but still not “general”) audience.

 

Manfredi

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of JJE Esposito

Sent: 01 December 2019 18:33
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/CABcSf%2BgSx73noyznGCYbU63soSRtnM%2BwajSet2itELMQBCZRcA%40mail.gmail.com.

[JJE Esposito]

What I really get a kick out of OA discussions is how the goal posts keep getting moved back--or to the side, or turned upside down. So Dr. La Manna inserts the word "interested" to describe the beneficiaries, and alters one aspect of the discourse for everyone, though who will object? My view is that whatever the benefits of OA, there is little benefit for people not affiliated with research organizations. So why not focus on the aspects that matter? 

Joe Esposito

[Joyce Ogburn]

Very early on in the OA discussions the patient advocates made the case that people in need of medical information would be motivated to learn what was needed to make decisions themselves or to consult their doctors.  They were “interested” but not medical professionals. As far as I know no one has proposed a test or requirements for the level or type of knowledge or interest needed to access research outputs. We certainly don’t test their knowledge before selling or lending people books or journals. Without access learning doesn’t occur. 

Joyce 

Joyce Ogburn

FarView Insights

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2019, at 10:07 AM, JJE Esposito <jjoh...@gmail.com> wrote:



<image001.jpg>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/CABcSf%2BjP_EDphXyRgBmVw-GLzAwxakL%3DW91u_Cm%2BO8RsxJnk%2BQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Manfredi La Manna]

It may be helpful to distinguish between supply and demand: Open Access is universal (rather than targeted) because resources are saved by making it so rather than some Big Brotherish person-specific scheme that restricts access to knowledge only to those individuals who can absorb it and for whom it is relevant. OA is silent as to whom may demand peer-reviewed research, the presumption being that only interested people will actually access the material and that they belong to a set that is larger than the set of interested people able to pay for access. Is this too simple?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/550C3211-FE9C-462F-B8E5-3CEA76DEB797%40appstate.edu.

[JJE Esposito]

Joyce,

I am not opening an argument against OA. My point is simply that the "democratization" argument is virtually useless. The most compelling argument (articulated by Clifford Lynch some years ago) is on machine analysis of large data sets. Paywalls that stop people are one thing, paywalls that stop machines are something else. The latter is far more significant. This significance grows when more material is OA for humans, which makes discovery increasingly difficult. It is unfortunate that OA has gotten caught up in the social justice movement, at least by its rhetoric. A stronger case can be made to free the machines.

Joe Esposito

[Lisa Hinchliffe]

I think the question that is still open is whether this approach to supply is the most cost-efficient method for meeting the demand. For example, even if universal OA saves resources, does it save the most? 

___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/VE1PR06MB6336B005ECAF6243258C9AAFD8430%40VE1PR06MB6336.eurprd06.prod.outlook.com.

[Glenn Hampson]

I think you’re both right. The readability of research articles is a tangent. But it’s important to think about if our goal is to create a world of research articles that are free to all interested parties. OA is a monumental undertaking. Why do it if all we’re going to end up with is free access to articles no one understands (outside a tiny circle of experts)? The marginal benefits may be narrow given the disruption this change will cause. Improving the usability of this freed information (not just be improving readability but by standardizing data, improving infographics, etc.) is in keeping with the ethos of the OA movement, and is going to be essential if we are to realize the full potential of open.

 

And to Joe’s point, the goal posts aren’t so much moving as finally getting erected. “World peace” isn’t a goal---it’s an aspiration. We need to stop treating BOAI as a documented handed down to Moses on stone tablets. It’s just a nice starting point for discussion, and the more meat we can put on the bones the better. BOAI states that “Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.” This is a beautiful sentiment, and one that we share in OSI. But in terms of a policy instrument, it sucks. We need feedback, proof, pilot projects, achievable goals and timeframes, flexible implementation, and more---i.e., we need to construct and erect our goalposts, which is what we’re trying to do here. Doing this together is key---we can’t achieve open with the aspirational goalposts described in BOAI, nor can we achieve open with goalposts constructed by single parties whose worldview is set in stone (e.g., “the subscription-based model of scientific publishing, including its so-called  ‘hybrid’ variants, should therefore be terminated”).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

 

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/CABcSf%2BjP_EDphXyRgBmVw-GLzAwxakL%3DW91u_Cm%2BO8RsxJnk%2BQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[David Wojick]

Yes, I used the Flesch scale a lot back when I was doing plain language reform work in the late 70's. Science and engineering has lots of long words, while law has lots of long sentences. The longest I saw was about 160 words, from the IRS. My conjecture was that the legal tie is tightest if two provisions lie in the same sentence.

 I almost got the Flesch test included in an Executive Order calling for plain language in federal regulations. OMB balked because it would have been a windfall for those selling testing services.

As to the medical case, that is probably OA's strongest argument. The question is whether it justifies restructuring the entire system? 

David

[David Wojick]

My scoring system is just for science communication. We wanted to do math but could not sell it to DOE. The Flesh test just uses sentence and word length, so it's great weakness has always been that it did not include concept grade level. You could write a high end quantum mechanics piece with a 10th grade Flesh score. We solved that problem for scientific concepts at least, which is where a lot of difficulty comes from. 

Mind you the U.S. is going through a major partial transition in science education that greatly complicates matters. The new Next Generation Science Standards change the grade level at which a bunch of stuff is taught, compared to the conventional state standards. About one third of our students are now under NGSS, so there are really two different science education systems. Must be driving the textbook publishers nuts. Same for scicomm.

David

http://www.stemed.info

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/01ae01d5a896%24e7aa34f0%24b6fe9ed0%24%40nationalscience.org.

[David Wojick]

There is another interesting transition going on, which is to my mind a bit strange. Under the new CORE English standards, reading science is now part of the English curriculum. I have trouble imagining how our English teachers, who are experts in poetry and fine literature, will teach this subject. Most states have adopted CORE, because the Feds paid them to, unlike NGSS.

More generally, there is already a vast system in place for diffusing scientific knowledge throughout the general public. The Internet has probably hugely increased this flow. OA needs to explain how making journal articles open will greatly improve this existing machinery. Instead they tend to talk as though journals where all there is to it, which is very wrong.

David

http://www.stemed.info

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/05CD0DED-BC4C-43A5-8C97-80F79CEEA500%40craigellachie.us.

[Rick Anderson]

> Why do it if all we’re going to end up with is free access to articles no one

> understands (outside a tiny circle of experts)?

 

One good reason is that in many cases, the world can benefit tremendously from content that the majority of people in the world can’t understand. (For example, I don’t need to understand an endocrinology study myself in order to benefit very directly from my endocrinologist’s access to that study.)

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Monday, December 2, 2019 at 8:49 AM
To: 'JJE Esposito' <jjoh...@gmail.com>, 'Manfredi La Manna' <m...@st-andrews.ac.uk>
Cc: 'Danny Kingsley' <da...@dannykingsley.com>, David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>, 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: The science communication dilemma

 

I think you’re both right. The readability of research articles is a tangent. But it’s important to think about if our goal is to create a world of research articles that are free to all interested parties. OA is a monumental undertaking. Why do it if all we’re going to end up with is free access to articles no one understands (outside a tiny circle of experts)? The marginal benefits may be narrow given the disruption this change will cause. Improving the usability of this freed information (not just be improving readability but by standardizing data, improving infographics, etc.) is in keeping with the ethos of the OA movement, and is going to be essential if we are to realize the full potential of open.

1.       From the Geological Society of America Bulletin, March 1955. Ernst Cloos---Experimental Analysis of Fracture Patterns: “The importance of fractures can hardly be exaggerated. Most likely, man could not live if rocks were not fractured. The loosening of rocks, formation of soil, and erosion would become next to impossible…”

2.       From the March 1985 issue. Joseph Walder and Bernard Hallet---A theoretical model of the fracture of rock during freezing: “The breakdown of rocks by freezing, or frost cracking, has been a subject of great interest to geomorphologists for many years.  Frost action has been considered to be of paramount importance in the development of landscapes…(Refs).” Scott notes here that “A single point to make—among many others—is how the total potential audience addressed has been reduced from all of humanity (in the first example) to geomorphologists, who represent a single branch of the geological sciences.”

3.       From the September 2013 issue. Andrea Festa, Vildirim Dilek, Guilia Codegone, Simona Cavgna, and Gian Pini---Structural Anatomy of the Ligurian accretionary wedge, and evolution of superposed mélanges: “The shape and growth of the frontal wedge of modern accretionary complexes repeatedly change to maintain the dynamic equilibrium in the wedge through alternating tectonic and sedimentary (i.e., gravitational) activities (9 Refs).” Writes Scott, “In this case, I would draw your attention to two things in particular, again among many others that could be discussed.  First, the specialized vocabulary (jargon, we might say) of the first two lines determines instantly who may enter here and who would be wasting their time in an attempt to do so.  If you don’t know what the wedge of an accretionary complex is, you are not welcome here.  But also note the authorship of this article.  It is fully international.  Affiliations of the authors include universities in Italy, Spain, and China.  The journal, in other words, may be named the Geological Society of America Bulletin, but it is fully global in the span of its contributors and their subjects.

 

“So to summarize the trends in these three samples,” he writes, “as indicative of scientific discourse as a whole—and I would wager that an overwhelming majority of researchers would agree to this—we see that this discourse has become progressively:

·         more stylized, specialist

·         less open to the kind of relaxed, colloquial, and literary touches seen in the first example.

·         greatly dependent on jargon to carry the weight of meaning.

 

Given these trends, it would appear there is but little chance that journal science will become more accessible to the public, or even to scientists from other fields.

 

What all this tells us, finally, is that the transfer of findings from the journal literature to the public involves not just re-phrasing and selection, but an act of actual translation—remembering that translation always involves interpretation and re-writing.  People able to do this competently, without inaccuracies or misleading exaggerations, can not be found at your local market or grocery store.  Nor do a great many of them exist in media centers.  They are rare and their value should be recognized.”

 

4.       And finally, from today. A.K. Abdel-Fattah, K.Y. Kim, M.S. Fnais (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea), “Slip distribution model of two small-sized inland earthquakes and its tectonic implication in north-eastern desert of Egypt”; Journal of African Earth Sciences. “Seismicity of Egypt is attributed to the relative tectonic motion between African, Arabian, and Eurasian plates…The identification of active fault planes in these seismogenic zones is essential for the potential seismic hazard that may carry on the closed urban cities.” “In this final passage,” writes Scott, “we see something quite different than what we’ve been discussing.  Most of the passage is in perfect good, comprehensible English.  But then we encounter the final few phrases, which leave us puzzling.  How did this get past the editors?  In fact, the journal’s editors include geoscientists from the U.S. and other Anglophone nations. The fact is that a sizeable number of journals have begun to publish articles with non-standard English—meaning non-Anglo-American (the standard most widely adopted and followed by the highest prestige journals like Nature and Science).  The degree to which this might expand in the future is difficult to discern.  The reality of World Englishes, meaning varieties of English that have developed around the world through adaptation to different cultural-linguistic settings (e.g. Nigerian English, Hong Kong English, Jamaican English, Indian English, etc.) may well dictate that such flexibility will have to grow.  We will have to wait and see. “

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/003d01d5a928%2407fb8dd0%2417f2a970%24%40nationalscience.org.

[Glenn Hampson]

Hi Rick,

 

Absolutely. And this is one area where more research would help. There is anecdotal evidence both ways with regard to the scope of “essential use” access problems. I’m not aware of any study that puts a hard number on this. Anyone? I’m not talking about how long it takes to find an article---this is also an issue---but whether, say, a study on the latest treatment for pancreatic cancer is completely unavailable to a cancer doc through Research4Life, ILL, email sharing, etc. This isn’t Manfredi’s “interested” group, but a “necessary” group. Fulfilling the needs of this group needs to be a central goal of open, I agree.

 

Strangely, though, this problem doesn’t seem to be very sexy to funders. Since we haven’t quantified this deficit yet, funders aren’t moved by it. We can’t say that 5 million children a year are dying because their doctors can’t read the latest issue of Nature. If that were the case there would certainly be a call to action that would make open access the law of the land by next year. Rather, funders seem to be more enamored with the potential of open to create interdisciplinary connections and new, revolutionary insights and discoveries. And getting to this interdisciplinary nirvana from here will require breaking down not only the “access” walls but the “translation” walls as well---clearer writing, standardized data, etc. (more interoperability).

 

So you’re right Rick. The “why do it all” refrain is over the top. OSI is concerned with the issue of equitable access, but we don’t have much company in this, and not much company in the way of funders who are willing to stand behind this concern. And maybe there’s a reason. Maybe the problem isn’t pronounced---we need to find out. Or maybe there’s an easier way to do open if the benefit is going to be limited to “just” people who need to know---e.g., just mandate (and have governments pay for) free and immediate access to all clinical trials research work that is more than 50% government funded (or some such). Certainly, if we can establish there’s an unmet need for information and that the consequences of our inaction are real and not hypothetical (lost lives, etc.), then moving the ball on this will be much easier. IF, however, our primary goal is more of the interdisciplinary ilk---to provide free info to anyone who is interested, for whatever purpose---then we need better goalposts, including (at some point) addressing the issue of how usable journal articles are in their current state.

 

Does this sound right to you? My F-K score is awful here….sorry.

[Rick Anderson]

> Does this sound right to you?

 

I guess I’m just not quite sure what “this” is. All other things being equal, of course it’s better for more people to have more access, and all other things being equal, of course it’s better for science and scholarship to be intelligible to the lay reader. The problem is that in the real world, all other things never are equal—and that means that making content accessible (in the OA sense) entails costs that need to be taken into account when evaluating any particular openness proposal, and making content accessible (in the comprehensibility sense) also entails costs that need to be taken into account. It’s easy to say “openness and comprehensibility are both good.” What’s harder is figuring out ways to create more openness and more comprehensibility that offer a good balance of benefit to cost.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

[Kaveh Bazargan]

Coming somewhat late to the party, we all agree that any specialism has jargon that is necessary and that aids fast communication with peers. My problem is with the extra layer of unnecessary jargon that makes a publication sound more professional or elite, but that does not aid communication, even with peers. To echo some of Glenn's points, I feel that in many fields there is a kind of accepted convoluted, and if I may say, pompous writing style that few question and that Early Career Researchers learn is the norm. 

As an example from my own previous life as an ECR in physics, I wrote the draft for a short letter to an Optics journal and showed it to a more senior colleague for comment. After a cursory look he said it would not get published in the particular journal as there were no equations in it. A quick look at the journal showed that all letters had 2–3 displayed equations. So I managed to find an excuse to put in a couple of complex equations even though my point was clear without them. Did it help explain my point? No. Was the paper published? Yes.

If I may paraphrase Einstein, in my view the prose of scholarly publications should be as complex as they need to be, but no more complex.

Kaveh

[Simon Linacre]

Speaking as a former journalist and publisher, surely the point about scientific communication is that is it isn't a choice between jargon-heavy articles and easy-to-read summary tweets - it can be both and everything in between. Harvard Business Review has a method termed 'from blog to book' where they take the essence of an idea expressed in a tweet, and work that idea through different levels of complexity, form and length until they potentially have a book, extracting value from the idea (and for them) each step along the way. 

No one should be asking a scientist to be a Pulitzer winner or a publisher to win a Nobel Prize, but they should be able to work together to communicate a single idea effectively to different audiences. Rather than a dilemma, there are questions of incentives, culture and priorities for academics that lead to a lack of scientific communication, and focusing on these problems is more likely to improve the status quo.

---

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kaveh Bazargan <ka...@rivervalleytechnologies.com>
Sent: 03 December 2019 09:53
To: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: The science communication dilemma

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[David Wojick]

The dilemma only occurs with individual writings, and it occurs every time. This includes the original article, which has to choose between the top three levels, as well as any reports on or summaries thereof, all the way to the textbook. (A lot of teaching materials include concepts that are at a higher level than their intended grade.)

But as I mentioned, the overall system may avoid the dilemma by producing content at various appropriate levels. This typically happens when the research result is deemed publicly important. This is the diffusion process. The Internet has done wonders here, as science is now widely discussed.

David

http://www.stemed.info

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/MN2PR19MB308751D540D0DD64F5CCC2DFE5420%40MN2PR19MB3087.namprd19.prod.outlook.com.

[Glenn Hampson]

Hi Kaveh,

 

Yes---sounds familiar (in my experience). I like your introduction of the word “pompous”---this probably makes the point more clearly than “complexity” or “density.” So, searching Google for “pompous science writing,” this nice essay in the Atlantic popped up: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

 

This research article attempts to explain why this type of writing persists: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701243/

 

The volume of scientific literature is enormous, but it is largely inaccessible to non-expert readers, including scientists from other fields. This is not just because the content is highly specialized but also because scientific writing itself is far from simple and clear. Generations of editors, reviewers and readers have struggled to understand complex, exaggerated and often pompous prose that does little to enhance the reader's understanding but aims to demonstrate the scholarly prowess of the author. The causes go beyond an inadequate command of the English language: they are rooted in long-standing practices that value pretentiousness over clear communication. These practices are passed down from senior to junior scientists, which explains why scientific writing remains generally poor despite regular criticism. It will take the combined efforts of scientists, research institutions and scientific journals to achieve a marked and long-lasting improvement.

 

I’d be curious to hear what the editors on this list have to say---whether, for instance, you ever see submissions that are super clear (and how you react to these), or whether all submissions are murky plus or minus a dozen obfuscations.

 

To your point, David, about level-appropriate writing, that’s true but here (I think) we’re talking just about journal articles, which are all written for consumption by other researchers. The point isn’t whether these journal articles need to be “dumbed down”; it’s whether they can be made more readable by toning down the pomposity. ECRs know this puffery is what’s expected, as the author notes in the above article. For further proof, there was a popular thread on Twitter recently where researchers were giving convoluted journal-sounding titles to their favorite television shows….funny but true (sorry---can’t find it now---I’ll keep looking).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Kaveh Bazargan
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 1:53 AM
To: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: The science communication dilemma

 

Coming somewhat late to the party, we all agree that any specialism has jargon that is necessary and that aids fast communication with peers. My problem is with the extra layer of unnecessary jargon that makes a publication sound more professional or elite, but that does not aid communication, even with peers. To echo some of Glenn's points, I feel that in many fields there is a kind of accepted convoluted, and if I may say, pompous writing style that few question and that Early Career Researchers learn is the norm. 

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[David Wojick]

I have not personally observed the unnecessary use of technical terms and I have some trouble with the concept. (Your math example, while fascinating, is not a case.) A technical term conveys information that is difficult to express without it. So for the use of a term to be unnecessary, that information would have to be unnecessary. This seems to me a subjective judgement at best. You can disagree with the author about what they choose to say, but that is just an opinion, especially when you think they are saying too much.

David

http://www.stemed.info

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[David Wojick]

Both these articles seem to be about changing to writing for lower learning levels. The Atlantic piece is about plain language reform, which I was once very active in. The PMC piece is about reaching broader audiences, hence lower learning levels. (Calling technical language pompous is itself pompous.) the fact that only experts can understand expert language is frustrating but unavoidable. That is the basic nature of language.

As for journals, even here there is a choice among the top three levels. The choice of level is the choice of eligible readers.

My basic point remains. The lower the level, the less the science can be conveyed. This has nothing to do with clarity or readability at a given level. That is an entirely different issue, which I address in part in my taxonomy if 126 confusion causing factors. 

See https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/02/05/a-taxonomy-of-confusions/.

Mine is a point about the nature of scientific language and information (which is a principal research area of mine). Editors are great with language, but they are not experts on the nature of language. (Just as star athletes are not experts in sports medicine. ) So when they try to talk about language they are likely to get it wrong.

David

http://www.stemed.info

On Dec 3, 2019, at 10:51 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Kaveh,

 

Yes---sounds familiar (in my experience). I like your introduction of the word “pompous”---this probably makes the point more clearly than “complexity” or “density.” So, searching Google for “pompous science writing,” this nice essay in the Atlantic popped up: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

 

This research article attempts to explain why this type of writing persists: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701243/

 

The volume of scientific literature is enormous, but it is largely inaccessible to non-expert readers, including scientists from other fields. This is not just because the content is highly specialized but also because scientific writing itself is far from simple and clear. Generations of editors, reviewers and readers have struggled to understand complex, exaggerated and often pompous prose that does little to enhance the reader's understanding but aims to demonstrate the scholarly prowess of the author. The causes go beyond an inadequate command of the English language: they are rooted in long-standing practices that value pretentiousness over clear communication. These practices are passed down from senior to junior scientists, which explains why scientific writing remains generally poor despite regular criticism. It will take the combined efforts of scientists, research institutions and scientific journals to achieve a marked and long-lasting improvement.

 

I’d be curious to hear what the editors on this list have to say---whether, for instance, you ever see submissions that are super clear (and how you react to these), or whether all submissions are murky plus or minus a dozen obfuscations.

 

To your point, David, about level-appropriate writing, that’s true but here (I think) we’re talking just about journal articles, which are all written for consumption by other researchers. The point isn’t whether these journal articles need to be “dumbed down”; it’s whether they can be made more readable by toning down the pomposity. ECRs know this puffery is what’s expected, as the author notes in the above article. For further proof, there was a popular thread on Twitter recently where researchers were giving convoluted journal-sounding titles to their favorite television shows….funny but true (sorry---can’t find it now---I’ll keep looking).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

<image001.jpg>

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Kaveh Bazargan
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 1:53 AM
To: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: The science communication dilemma

 

Coming somewhat late to the party, we all agree that any specialism has jargon that is necessary and that aids fast communication with peers. My problem is with the extra layer of unnecessary jargon that makes a publication sound more professional or elite, but that does not aid communication, even with peers. To echo some of Glenn's points, I feel that in many fields there is a kind of accepted convoluted, and if I may say, pompous writing style that few question and that Early Career Researchers learn is the norm. 

 

As an example from my own previous life as an ECR in physics, I wrote the draft for a short letter to an Optics journal and showed it to a more senior colleague for comment. After a cursory look he said it would not get published in the particular journal as there were no equations in it. A quick look at the journal showed that all letters had 2–3 displayed equations. So I managed to find an excuse to put in a couple of complex equations even though my point was clear without them. Did it help explain my point? No. Was the paper published? Yes.

 

If I may paraphrase Einstein, in my view the prose of scholarly publications should be as complex as they need to be, but no more complex.

 

Kaveh

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[Glenn Hampson]

“The lower the [writing] level, the less science can be conveyed.” Charles Darwin, Richard Feynman, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Natalie Angier, and Rachel Carson would beg to differ. In any case, we should probably retire this topic for another day---it’s not central to our work right now. It seems we all mostly agree there can be readability issues in research. What this means and what to do about it (if anything, assuming there’s anything we can do about it) is a different matter.

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 10:41 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/E9D268E2-91BE-4B1E-A72D-978FEBCBD0CD%40craigellachie.us.

[David Wojick]

I doubt they would disagree. Each famous popularizer is well aware of the high level scientific things they are not saying.

And once again (third or fourth time, I forget) this is not about readability. It is about the flow of scientific information. OA without improved flow is worthless. Actually worse than worthless if it injures publishers with no comparable benefit. The level of the communication determines who can receive it and what it can contain. 

OA is not just about free articles; it is (or should be) about improving the system of scientific communication. Otherwise what is the point? It becomes just another fad.

David

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[Margaret Winker]

While I agree it is probably time to move onto more immediate topics, I will respond to your question, aka take the bait, Glenn:

>I’d be curious to hear what the editors on this list have to say---whether, for instance, you ever see submissions that are super clear (and how you react to these), or whether all submissions are murky plus or minus a dozen obfuscations.

In my experience, clarity of writing is as varied as the people submitting it. Super clear is the exception -- it is a joy but suggests that an author's editor may have been involved and hopefully was acknowledged, or that one of the authors has an English degree--or perhaps that the paper was plagiarized from a carefully edited source. Overall factors include

-Active vs passive voice -- passive voice is traditional; active voice is much easier to follow, particularly for the methods and results.

-First vs third person--for methods and results at least, first person makes sense -- assuming the author(s) actually conducted the research.

--as discussed tongue-in-cheek in How to Write Like a Scientist (freely accessible!): https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/03/how-write-scientist

Margaret

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[Glenn Hampson]

OMG---that’s a must-read article. Thanks Maggie.

 

4. The more references you include, the more scholarly your reader will assume you are. Thus, if you write a sentence like, “Much work has been done in this field,” you should plan to spend the next 9 hours tracking down papers so that your article ultimately reads, “Much work has been done in this field^{1,3,6-27,29-50,58,61,62-65,78-315,952-Avogadro’s Number}.” If you ever write a review article, EndNote might explode.

 

For the record, I really enjoy discussing this topic---it’s kinda my home court---maybe yours as well. But the reason we should “probably” move on (although this is not up to me---it’s just a recommendation, noting how not everyone enjoys getting 30 emails/day from OSI) is that it seems we’re mostly coming at this issue from personal perspectives---moi aussi---and that we aren’t really referencing a common set of facts. It’s also a bit of a tangent. All this said, I think we have established that this is an interesting and worthwhile topic for further consideration, so maybe we should circle back to it after we solve open access, peer review, predatory publishing, embargoes, impact factors, global flips, APCs, and repository interoperability.

 

 

From: Margaret Winker <margare...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 7:15 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

[susan]

It is a painful reminder of how long one as been a professional in a field when you see the same debates and discussions coming around for the 3rd or 4th time.   

I often advise young researchers to go for near transfer (can someone whose work is close to yours deeply and truly understand what you are communicating) before reaching for far transfer (hoping novices or broad, non specialist audiences understand).   Some fields are highly technical (mathematics) and don't transfer easily.    Some, like psychology, actually suffer from the use of words we use in everyday language as scientific language with more precise usage.  This leads the novice to acquire the "illusion of explanatory depth" - thinking they have grasped something they have not.

This all said, every field has wonderfully clear communicators - who write or talk clearly at everyone of the levels outlined below.  The mistake we make is thinking everyone can do this if they just had a few hours of some "media training." 

[Jason Steinhauer]

As a coda, I would like to say that I very much enjoyed this exchange. Thank you all. Some of you know that I have been involved for the past few years in forming the sub-discipline of History Communication, modeled (in part) on Science Communication. 

Scholarly writing in the humanities has many (if not all) of the same characteristics of science research: jargon, complexity, specialized terminology, etc. The opacity is compounded by the fact that many historians believe they are the next Toni Morrison -- and get quite upset when someone tells them they are not. 

Beyond writing, humanists have been largely unprepared to make advantage of other forms of communication available, including podcasts and Internet videos. This is something History Communication has taken on directly. We now have History Communication courses being taught in several universities as well as a History Communication fellowship program at the Lepage Center (where I am director). The field of public history has also begun to take this seriously in the past five years, introducing these skills into public history masters programs.

I tend to agree with Susan that not everyone can take on this role of public communicator across multiple platforms and knowledge levels. But some do show improvement when instruction is baked into the professional training and taken seriously. It is as much a culture change as it is a skills development project.

Incidentally, I am working on a book about History Communication. It should be out next year (hopefully!)

All best,

-jason

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