3 ms·

It's probably a little easier to fool people with AI generated scientific literature than a regular piece of literature. Most scientists are not good writers to

by asdff 4y ago

It's probably a little easier to fool people with AI generated scientific literature than a regular piece of literature. Most scientists are not good writers to begin with. English might not even be their first, or even second or third language. Even then, there are a lot of crutch words and phrases that scientists rely upon. "Novel finding" "elucidate" "putative" "could one day pave way for" "laying important groundwork" and all sorts of similar words and phrases are highly overused, especially in the abstract, intro, and discussion sections where you wax lyrical about hypothetical translational utility from your basic research finding. A lot of scientific writers could really use a thesaurus, and learn more ways to structure a sentence.

uniqueuid 4y ago
Your critique assumes that the goal of scientific writing is to be intelligible to lay people. In truth, the entire weird and crufty vocabulary is simply a common set of placeholders that makes it easier to grasp research, because the in-group learns to understand them as such.
- asdff 4y ago
  I'm not saying this contributes to being more unintelligible. These are just filler words anyhow, not jargon. I agree that if anything, it makes it faster to read a paper since your brain just glosses over the same structures you've read 1000 times already and directs you to the meat. However, as someone who reads a lot of papers for my job, I just wish writers were more interesting——you will never see an em dash like I've used here, for example. Maybe scientists could benefit from reading more Hemingway in their downtime.
  - busyant 4y ago
    i recommend active voice over passive. i also tell students to strive for clarity. "don't write like you have a pole up your ass."
- eslaught 4y ago
  As a computer scientist (you can check my publication record through my profile) and an (aspiring) novelist, I disagree. A lot of papers are just poorly written, full stop. It is also true that science literature contains a lot of jargon that encodes important information. But that doesn't excuse the fact that a lot of scientific writing could be improved substantially, even if the only audience were experts in the same field.
  - LolWolf 4y ago
    Yeah, a lot of scientific writing is just downright useless, and I don't just mean that in the "haha, it's hard to read, but it's ok"-sense. For example, in many fields (parts of theoretical physics, many parts of econ) publications are so hard to read that "reading" a paper looks less like "learning from the author by following what they did on paper" and more like "rederiving the same thing that the author claims to do, except by yourself with only some minor guidance from the paper." This is, frankly, absolutely insane, but it's the current state of things.
    - chaxor 4y ago
      It's a fine line to walk when publishing. For example, is it ok to use the term "Hilbert space" in an article? Perhaps in physics, but not if publishing in biology - or at least in biology, a few sentences to describe the term may be more appropriate. But the use of the term is actually quite useful, as in this manufactured example the article may apply only to Hilbert spaces but not all vector spaces. So since the distinction may be important to the finding, the terminology is necessary.
      - LolWolf 4y ago
        Oh, no, I'm not dismissing terminology! (That's a whole separate topic, which is distinct from writing, though it can sometimes be a sign of bad writing.) I'm talking specifically about the actual writing. Iirc, there's a phrase that sums it up quite nicely: "most science is written like it hates you and wants you to stop reading immediately." Poor writing is so much the norm that people are shocked when you write a readable article. (You'd be surprised at the number of peer review comments I've received to the effect of, "the writing is surprisingly clear and direct," and I'm not like, a novelist, or essayist, or anything. English isn't even my first language! It's just not the norm to think about, and much less act on, these things.)
bigger_cheese 4y ago
My university had a style guide for scientific writing. I had to follow it when writing my engineering thesis. It contained formatting rules. The text must be double spaced size 11 font, The table of contents must be laid out in this specific way, tables and figures have to be included and referenced in this particular fashion and so on. It also imposed rigid restrictions on language usage and writing style it basically emphasized writing short sentences. No adverbs. Avoid passive voice, Write everything in first person tense and so on. I asked my housemate who studied creative writing to proof read my thesis. He commented on how sterile and cold the whole things felt compared to the more florid prose he was used to. So the way scientific papers read is very much by design.

by asdff 4y ago

uniqueuid 4y ago

Your critique assumes that the goal of scientific writing is to be intelligible to lay people. In truth, the entire weird and crufty vocabulary is simply a common set of placeholders that makes it easier to grasp research, because the in-group learns to understand them as such.

asdff 4y ago
I'm not saying this contributes to being more unintelligible. These are just filler words anyhow, not jargon. I agree that if anything, it makes it faster to read a paper since your brain just glosses over the same structures you've read 1000 times already and directs you to the meat. However, as someone who reads a lot of papers for my job, I just wish writers were more interesting——you will never see an em dash like I've used here, for example. Maybe scientists could benefit from reading more Hemingway in their downtime.
- busyant 4y ago
  i recommend active voice over passive. i also tell students to strive for clarity. "don't write like you have a pole up your ass."
eslaught 4y ago
As a computer scientist (you can check my publication record through my profile) and an (aspiring) novelist, I disagree. A lot of papers are just poorly written, full stop. It is also true that science literature contains a lot of jargon that encodes important information. But that doesn't excuse the fact that a lot of scientific writing could be improved substantially, even if the only audience were experts in the same field.
- LolWolf 4y ago
  Yeah, a lot of scientific writing is just downright useless, and I don't just mean that in the "haha, it's hard to read, but it's ok"-sense. For example, in many fields (parts of theoretical physics, many parts of econ) publications are so hard to read that "reading" a paper looks less like "learning from the author by following what they did on paper" and more like "rederiving the same thing that the author claims to do, except by yourself with only some minor guidance from the paper." This is, frankly, absolutely insane, but it's the current state of things.
  - chaxor 4y ago
    It's a fine line to walk when publishing. For example, is it ok to use the term "Hilbert space" in an article? Perhaps in physics, but not if publishing in biology - or at least in biology, a few sentences to describe the term may be more appropriate. But the use of the term is actually quite useful, as in this manufactured example the article may apply only to Hilbert spaces but not all vector spaces. So since the distinction may be important to the finding, the terminology is necessary.
    - LolWolf 4y ago
      Oh, no, I'm not dismissing terminology! (That's a whole separate topic, which is distinct from writing, though it can sometimes be a sign of bad writing.) I'm talking specifically about the actual writing. Iirc, there's a phrase that sums it up quite nicely: "most science is written like it hates you and wants you to stop reading immediately." Poor writing is so much the norm that people are shocked when you write a readable article. (You'd be surprised at the number of peer review comments I've received to the effect of, "the writing is surprisingly clear and direct," and I'm not like, a novelist, or essayist, or anything. English isn't even my first language! It's just not the norm to think about, and much less act on, these things.)

bigger_cheese 4y ago

My university had a style guide for scientific writing. I had to follow it when writing my engineering thesis. It contained formatting rules. The text must be double spaced size 11 font, The table of contents must be laid out in this specific way, tables and figures have to be included and referenced in this particular fashion and so on. It also imposed rigid restrictions on language usage and writing style it basically emphasized writing short sentences. No adverbs. Avoid passive voice, Write everything in first person tense and so on. I asked my housemate who studied creative writing to proof read my thesis. He commented on how sterile and cold the whole things felt compared to the more florid prose he was used to. So the way scientific papers read is very much by design.