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> This may require “watering down” the results being described — stating corollaries or special cases instead of the full theorems in their maximal generality.
by twelfthnight 3y ago
> This may require “watering down” the results being described — stating corollaries or special cases instead of the full theorems in their maximal generality. Sometimes you may even need to leave out technical conditions required for the results to really be true.
This is a trade off, don't you think? Without the marketing, the paper would be more complete and correct.
- lupire 3y agoNo, your exercpt is not complete and correct. "So, the introduction to a math paper should set the scene as simply as possible" The introduction is not the whole paper.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- twelfthnight 3y agoIf I have a salad and I water down just the dressing the whole salad is still worse, no? Unless you are saying the introduction isn't important, in which case why would you need to change it at all to make the paper more engaging?
- ajkjk 3y agoIn that odd metaphor the dressing started disgusting and you're watering it down in order to make it palatable.
- Ar-Curunir 3y agoNo, you skipped the context, which says that in the introduction you talk about special cases to build intuition, and then provide the general result in the technical part.
- twelfthnight 3y agoHuh, I guess I missed the part about providing the general result in the technical part (still don't see it, but that makes sense), ultimately that does seem like a good idea. At least I've heard we understand better from examples first and then generalities. My (admittedly grumpy) gripe is more that the aim of the blog is that "dull" is bad and suggests to add/subtract candid mathematics with "heroes" and "conflict". If the paper isn't _clear_, that's one thing, but "trick"ing the reader to spend more time on your article than they would without the embellishment is patronizing at best and disingenuous at worst.