Figuring out How to Write Again...

There was a point just as I transitioned between my Ph.D. and first postdoc where I felt like I was being crazy productive. I had just written a thesis and was working on three separate manuscripts (all of which were actually published). All of this material came out of projects that I'd had a large part in designing, and so I didn't feel as though I had much difficulty charting out drafts for publication.

Then two years passed during which I wrote little of my own design, but rather focused on contributing analysis to larger efforts. I did draft at least one manuscript, but it fizzled because key co-authors had different opinions about where the emphasis should lay. It's not easy to write a good manuscript when you disagree on which results are the most significant and interesting1.

Unfortunately, I feel that I've become 'rusty'. Blogging helps with grammar and syntax (which is part of the reason that I've worked to keep it up), but it doesn't necessarily help with good 'science writing'. Actually, I've found that there are so many opinions regarding what 'good science writing' is, that I'm beginning to think that it's one of those 'you'll know it when you see it' things.

In the midst of working on flexing my typing fingers again, a colleague pointed me to an excellent journal article that both highlights some of the common mistakes that scientists make when trying to convey complex information to their peers, and suggests many alternatives. Some were even revelatory to me, at least in terms of focusing my own though process; while all the while being rather simple to implement. I wanted to share the article, which can be accessed by anyone here:

Gopen GD, Swan JA. 1990. The Science of Scientific Writing. Am Sci 78: 550–558.

I think that a few key insights from the paper are worth discussing. After pointing out some of the common pitfalls of scientific writing2, the authors suggest that there's a reason for why manuscripts aren't always written with a major focus on clarity: scientist are much more concerned with making sure that all of the information that must be conveyed is there rather than making sure that the 'flow' is adequate.

However, as the authors point out, improving flow requires only a few rules of thumb (you can go read them for yourself). The most significant suggestions that have changed the way I've been looking over my drafts are summarized in the following three points:

Place in the stress position the "new information" you want the reader to emphasize. 

Place the person or thing whose "story" a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence, in the topic position.

Place appropriate "old information" (material already stated in the discourse) in the topic position for linkage backward and contextualization forward.

Once you figure out the 'stress' and 'topic' positions, it seems simple. Despite this, I think that it says a lot: Scientific writing is all about clarity and communication. While basic rules about sentence construction still apply (avoid redundancy, etc.), the overall construction of sentences, paragraphs, and sections works best when they follow a defined flow linking each section explicitly into the next. Again, this may seem intuitively obvious, but when you begin looking at the examples given in the text, I think you'll notice that many of the times you've had to read over a section multiple times, were because the expected flow of information was interrupted3. 

Regardless, the article helped me reorganize some troublesome sections and lay out areas of the text more efficiently. I hope that others will find it useful as well.

1I've found that this is surprisingly easy, particularly when your data is being interpreted by people with widely different interests or backgrounds. An observation that is fascinating to you can be completely (and disappointingly) uninteresting to someone outside of your field.

2For instance, scientific papers often, in order to convey more information, separate subjects from verbs via overly long clauses, which leads to a difficulty in parsing due to playing against expectations. Mmmm... bittersweet.

3This occurs more often than not because information is referenced externally, or knowledge is assumed of the reader due to space constraints. 

The 'New' Media...

I have this odd tradition in that, whenever I'm flying, I read The Economist. I say that it's odd because I'd actually love to read the magazine weekly, but a) the subscription fee tends to be on the high side and b) I barely read through the couple of monthly mags that I now receive, let alone being able to find the time to digest a weekly.

My primary draw to the magazine, of all things, is the quality of its writing rather than the depth of its content (which I also enjoy, incidentally). As a scientist, I'm required to write quite a bit: obviously for publication, but also regularly in the form of professional emails and documents. As I and other more esteemed professional writers have long advocated, good writing comes both from practice1 and from comprehensive reading. Reading good writing begets improved ideas about proper style in one's one work.

It's interesting then that the current issue of The Economist (9-15 July 2011) has a special section about the future of journalism. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple of decades2, you're probably aware that the rapid growth of the internet in the West has put a massive squeeze on the circulation and revenues of print publications (interestingly, newspaper 'circ' numbers continue to rise in Asia). Honestly, it's difficult to compete: the net is a) 'free', b) fast, c) searchable, and d) global. Of course there's been talk of monetizing specific popular newspapers by placing them behind 'pay-walls', but I can't imagine how that will be successful in the long term.

To think that media on the net is simply a digital form of what was in print is a mistake, however. A large part of the very recent explosion of internet activity has come from participatory media (or Web 2.0 as people used to refer to it). This takes the form of both direct dispatches from 'the front' on sites like Twitter and Facebook (and what the hell, I'll add Google+), but also the ability to comment on particular news items and engage in discussions as the news is happening. As the article in The Economist notes, this 'democratizing' of the news is an obvious benefit to any liberal (small 'l' here for my fellow Canadians).

The author's discussion of the subject, however, notes 2 drawbacks to this new form of media: Firstly, that 'bloggers' and 'crowdsourced' journalism are difficult to hold accountable in the wake of allegations of corruption, libel, or crime. It's difficult to know who is legitimate (this also applies to traditional new outlets as well, obviously). Secondly, despite the breadth in available content, people tend to only seek out that content which echoes back their own beliefs. Internet news, they content, allows for a much deeper partisanship than a local newspaper that has to try to sell to everyone and thus be more balanced in its reporting (however, as the authors themselves note, there's a move towards strong partisanship in traditional American media as well).

I'd like to add a third drawback: The quality of online writing tends to suck... bad. The effort to capture the immediacy of current events without the ability to digest all of the information leads to a lot of poorly written, desperately-in-need-of-editing, garbage. This doesn't only apply to news - I've noticed the same trends on tech and enthusisast websites as well. I'm concerned that a generation of people who've only received their information from online sources won't even be able to recognize and appreciate what a well-written piece of work can do for overall comprehension of the particular subject matter.

Oh well. Some would argue that if that's what the market wants, who are we to criticize what it gets? Hopefully The Economist will never be written by the kind of people who write for Gawker media.   


1The primary reason to have such a blog as far as I'm concerned.

2Note to self: Tired cliche. (See what I mean!?)