4 ms·

Here is a paper that really exemplifies Paul Graham's Write Like You Talk article, which is currently on the FP. I wish these articles were written for the publ

Here is a paper that really exemplifies Paul Graham's Write Like You Talk article, which is currently on the FP. I wish these articles were written for the public and were at least somewhat easy to digest.

patcheudor 11y ago
It's not even writing like you talk in this case. As an example: "This study examined smoking in first episode psychosis in order to minimize the any confounding effect of self-medication." Is there an editor in the house? It gets worse: "The results were that worldwide, 59% people with first episode psychosis use are regular tobacco users, that people with first episode psychosis have a six-fold greater probability of being smokers than the general population and that smoking initiation occurs on average 5.3 years before the onset of psychosis." I'll give researchers the benefit of the doubt that these types of mistakes could be related to English as a second, third, or fourth language. Maybe they happened as part of a bad translation? However, these were researchers from South Wales and Australia. As a result I wonder how many mistakes they made in their research. If you produce research which is worth publishing, get an editor.
- mehwoot 11y ago
  from South Wales New South Wales is a state of Australia, fyi.
DanBC 11y ago
It's a shame you got downvoted, because you make a good point. This article doesn't have to use as much jargon as it does; it doesn't have to use English in the confusing way it does. I want MH trusts to go smoke free. That involves me telling people why that's a good idea, and that would be much easier for me to do if articles like this were written in plainer English. Some jargon would still need to be used. For example they're talking about psychosis and first episodes of psychosis so that needs to stay.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- vonklaus 11y ago
  Thanks. I smoke and I found the title and subject matter interesting. I am not a genius but am perfectly capable of understanding the article. It is just mentally taxing trying to wade through a sentence structure that seems aimed at a goal of obfuscating knowledge and proving the writer is intelligent rather than disclosing the information in a terse digestible way. Below, someone pointed out that there are many grammatical errors as well. I have thought a lot more about long form articles in publications like the New Yorker and NYT, etc. While often criticized for over simplifications and lack of understanding of subject matter, they often present articles in a way casually interested parties will understand. I don't have a problem with the jargon, large/obscure word use (to the extent it is reasonable) or otherwise employing tactics to get the point across. It is just that, as someone casually interested (not an academic looking for citations) I don't really know what to do with this sentence: > Cannabis use almost always predates psychosis, is associated with an earlier age at onset (Donoghue et al., 2014; Myles et al., 2012b) and heavier and more potent cannabis users have an increased risk of developing psychosis (Di Forti et al., 2009) and do so at an earlier age than people smoking milder cannabis (Di Forti et al., 2014). I wish they would just use superscripts for citations, as a significant portion of that sentence is citations. If academics would just edit the papers, dump them into Tufte CSS or LaTEX with sitations as footnotes or sidenotes and adapt a style human beings could digest without collapsing to rest from the boredom and dull overly-complex structure I think they may find a readership base that exceeds the single digits it currently has. Do you know of a place with interesting articles written for non-academics? I think that would be a cool thing and sure it exists? Cheers.

patcheudor 11y ago

It's not even writing like you talk in this case. As an example: "This study examined smoking in first episode psychosis in order to minimize the any confounding effect of self-medication." Is there an editor in the house? It gets worse: "The results were that worldwide, 59% people with first episode psychosis use are regular tobacco users, that people with first episode psychosis have a six-fold greater probability of being smokers than the general population and that smoking initiation occurs on average 5.3 years before the onset of psychosis." I'll give researchers the benefit of the doubt that these types of mistakes could be related to English as a second, third, or fourth language. Maybe they happened as part of a bad translation? However, these were researchers from South Wales and Australia. As a result I wonder how many mistakes they made in their research. If you produce research which is worth publishing, get an editor.

mehwoot 11y ago
from South Wales New South Wales is a state of Australia, fyi.

DanBC 11y ago

It's a shame you got downvoted, because you make a good point. This article doesn't have to use as much jargon as it does; it doesn't have to use English in the confusing way it does. I want MH trusts to go smoke free. That involves me telling people why that's a good idea, and that would be much easier for me to do if articles like this were written in plainer English. Some jargon would still need to be used. For example they're talking about psychosis and first episodes of psychosis so that needs to stay.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vonklaus 11y ago
Thanks. I smoke and I found the title and subject matter interesting. I am not a genius but am perfectly capable of understanding the article. It is just mentally taxing trying to wade through a sentence structure that seems aimed at a goal of obfuscating knowledge and proving the writer is intelligent rather than disclosing the information in a terse digestible way. Below, someone pointed out that there are many grammatical errors as well. I have thought a lot more about long form articles in publications like the New Yorker and NYT, etc. While often criticized for over simplifications and lack of understanding of subject matter, they often present articles in a way casually interested parties will understand. I don't have a problem with the jargon, large/obscure word use (to the extent it is reasonable) or otherwise employing tactics to get the point across. It is just that, as someone casually interested (not an academic looking for citations) I don't really know what to do with this sentence: > Cannabis use almost always predates psychosis, is associated with an earlier age at onset (Donoghue et al., 2014; Myles et al., 2012b) and heavier and more potent cannabis users have an increased risk of developing psychosis (Di Forti et al., 2009) and do so at an earlier age than people smoking milder cannabis (Di Forti et al., 2014). I wish they would just use superscripts for citations, as a significant portion of that sentence is citations. If academics would just edit the papers, dump them into Tufte CSS or LaTEX with sitations as footnotes or sidenotes and adapt a style human beings could digest without collapsing to rest from the boredom and dull overly-complex structure I think they may find a readership base that exceeds the single digits it currently has. Do you know of a place with interesting articles written for non-academics? I think that would be a cool thing and sure it exists? Cheers.