Dear scientists,
Please, for the love of God, please, make your papers more understandable.
Fuck you
Sincerely,
A college student on the verge of tears
I’m writing a manuscript rn and every single piece of feedback i’ve gotten has boiled down to “use more technical language” and “be more formal”, and I have been actively going “i will not be doing that, thanks” but my GOD do they not like it.
update: i cant believe this is actual literal feedback i actually recieved
OK so this is a genuine issue in scientific communication where a paper requires very Precise language, and because people aren't really used to writing that, they crutch on rules of Formality, because they've never been taught how to write with Clarity.
In the above example, 'huge' is not a very precise term. Could mean anything from "lots" to "About the size of a battleship" to "bigger than expected". Not a very precise term. I'm not sure what OP's field is, but they should probably be using a word that's more specific like "Statistically Significant Differneces" instead of "Huge differences", or maybe "Widespread Impact" instead of "Huge Impact". Whoever is providing critique here should say "the use of 'huge' here is imprecise and can confuse what you're talking about, please use a more specific descriptor".
What people generally are asking for when they want something 'understandable' is Clarity. Complex topics are perfectly fine, but they need to be explained clearly. Purdue has a good guide here, which I'll share the outline of, because it's genuinely good advice for many genres or writing:
Go from old to new information and keep the timeline straight. No Dr. Who Plots.
Use Transitional words when bridging concepts. Words like however, therefore, in addition, also, but, moreover, etc.
Keep your sentence structure simple, and mind where you put subordinate clauses. This is really hard for ADHD people who srt of tend to zig-zag across concepts, but in general, it's better to have several simple sentences than one huge rambling one.
Use Active Voice. Good: "The Comittee decided to postpone the meeting". Bad: "A descision was reached to postpone the meeting by the comittee"
Use Parallel Contructions. If you're comparing several things, use the same gramatical structure to describe each thing.
Avoid Noun Strings. Good: "These projects will stimulate investments" Bad: "Investment Stimulation Projects"
Avoid using the noun version of verbs. Good: "The Plan was implemented sucessfully." Bad: "The implementation of the plan was sucessful."
Avoid Multiple Negatives. Double negatives are confusing as hell, triple negatives are worse.
Chose Action verbs over forms of "to be". Good: "TV can report on events much faster than newspapers." Bad: "One difference between TV and newspapers is the relative speed at which they can report on things."
Avid Unclear Pronoun References: If you use terms like It, They, He, She etc. make sure it's very clear who or what that pronoun is referring to.
