4 ms·

One of my PhD classes was a paper reading seminar that spanned most of the history of modern molecular biology, from 1959 to the present. It was starkly apparen

One of my PhD classes was a paper reading seminar that spanned most of the history of modern molecular biology, from 1959 to the present. It was starkly apparent how much worse the writing quality became around the mid-1980s and beyond. Compare the classic [“genetic code” paper by Francis Crick](https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1024/2cfa4b970e4a1fd816ee18afa95aae98/crick1961.pdf https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1024/2cfa4b970e4a1fd816ee18afa95aa...) with most modern papers More science authors should read writing advice like this.

dwaltrip 7y ago
That sounds intriguing, although it strikes me that you might have been observing a survivorship bias. Older papers that are considered notable today would probably be well-written compared to a random paper published last year, even if there weren't any group-level differences. To be fair, given that the papers-published-per-scientist-per-year metric has been increasing (somewhat unhealthily, so it seems), I wouldn't be surprised if there has been at least some decrease in writing quality, simply to due to less time spent editing and polishing.
- suchire 7y ago
  It’s definitely possible, but I think there’s still a palpable difference today. As an example, this work from 1989 on how telomeres work was awarded a Nobel in 2016. It’s not unreadable, but it has a completely different (and I would say worse) style compared to the Crick paper I linked earlier: https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1036/810d9cdd2ea2e1a07d887dc432061543/greider1989.pdf https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1036/810d9cdd2ea2e1a07d887dc432061... It’s also interesting how formats have evolved. Older journals like Nature and Science used to have a “letters” section--essentially letters to the editor. They were brief (200-300 words) and started with “Dear sirs”, like an actual letter. Today, a “letter” in the same journals is essentially a whole (short, 2-3 page) paper, like this one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1578-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1578-4
SamReidHughes 7y ago
I'd bet the advent of computers, not having to work with drafts on paper and suffer from rewriting them, has something to do with this. Godel Escher Bach is a book that was enthusiastically written with a word processor. And that explains a lot about it.

dwaltrip 7y ago

That sounds intriguing, although it strikes me that you might have been observing a survivorship bias. Older papers that are considered notable today would probably be well-written compared to a random paper published last year, even if there weren't any group-level differences. To be fair, given that the papers-published-per-scientist-per-year metric has been increasing (somewhat unhealthily, so it seems), I wouldn't be surprised if there has been at least some decrease in writing quality, simply to due to less time spent editing and polishing.

suchire 7y ago
It’s definitely possible, but I think there’s still a palpable difference today. As an example, this work from 1989 on how telomeres work was awarded a Nobel in 2016. It’s not unreadable, but it has a completely different (and I would say worse) style compared to the Crick paper I linked earlier: https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1036/810d9cdd2ea2e1a07d887dc432061543/greider1989.pdf https://moscow.sci-hub.tw/1036/810d9cdd2ea2e1a07d887dc432061... It’s also interesting how formats have evolved. Older journals like Nature and Science used to have a “letters” section--essentially letters to the editor. They were brief (200-300 words) and started with “Dear sirs”, like an actual letter. Today, a “letter” in the same journals is essentially a whole (short, 2-3 page) paper, like this one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1578-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1578-4

SamReidHughes 7y ago

I'd bet the advent of computers, not having to work with drafts on paper and suffer from rewriting them, has something to do with this. Godel Escher Bach is a book that was enthusiastically written with a word processor. And that explains a lot about it.