Perhaps then David has managed to escape some of the pressures put on
scientists to write badly. On several occasions I have been accused of
writing scientific papers in a journalistic style and told that this is not
acceptable. Although my reply is usually along the lines of, "Aren't
journalists the people who are forced to take courses on how to write?",
this never seems to sink in. On one occasion my lab director even sniffed
that a paper I had written read like something that might appear in
Scientific American. I was flattered but forced to change it.
My favourite example was the time I wrote a paper in which I argued that we
have to teach the public that there is more to biodiversity than cute harp
seals and fuzzy pandas, and the reviewer complained that if I knew how to
write a scientific paper I would know that words like "cute" and "fuzzy" are
unacceptable, and I should have referred to "charismatic megafauna". I even
had a T-shirt made up with the message "I brake for charismatic megafauna".
Fortunately a few papers I wrote on applications of fuzzy set theory to
ecology made it into print.
I once wrote a paper presenting a general theory of managing multi-species
fisheries, and was informed (see, passive voice!) that the journal required
that the Latin names of the species had to be included. Given the generality
of the theory, I provided the names Squid pro quo and Dolus fictus, but was
eventually forced to use the generic names "species A" and "species B".
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "David M. Lawrence" <d...@fuzzo.com>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: domingo, 17 de Janeiro de 2010 18:44
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] now I've seen it all
As a scientist AND a journalist, I would say that Orwell is right, and
that you seem to be sorely misguided. There is nothing wrong with writing
CLEARLY. Active voice, fewer syllables, etc., etc., do absolutely nothing
to lower reading comprehension among the masses. It does absolutely
nothing to lower the quality or the "beauty" of the writing. Some of the
greatest, most beautiful, and most complex writing in the world comes in
the form of haiku -- 17 syllables.
Who benefits by the use of a big, obscure word when a small, common one
will do? Generally only the writer, who demonstrates by his choice of
random selections from an unabridged dictionary how much more intelligent
he is than his readers. I'm not against big words in principle, but they
should be used only when necessary -- such as when there are no suitable
substitutes.
