On 2 November, 2007 the journal Science launched an experiment to increase the readability of the research articles they publish. For a five-week period, each article was accompanied by a one-page “Authors’ Summary” designed to make these papers more accessible – because as Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy pointed out “It’s clear that accessibility is a problem, because we’re all laypeople these days” (Science Vol 318).
While this experiment signals a growing awareness that articles should be written in a style that makes them available to a wide readership, the question is – do the Authors’ Summaries make research papers clearer?
Kennedy makes several observations about the impediments to clear communication in science. He points out that “it’s important for science journalists and scientists (to) find new ways of working more effectively with one another.” However, when scientists write manuscripts that accurately communicate their important findings, then everyone benefits including the researcher’s colleagues, educated readers, science journalists, and civil society. In other words, it isn’t the journalist’s role to reinterpret a scientist’s writing; scientists should learn how to communicate effectively in the first place.
Kennedy makes a second point that as science becomes increasingly specialized, researchers overuse abbreviations and specialized terms, making articles difficult for readers to understand. Explaining specialized terminology is a relatively easy thing to do. More egregious are articles that contain lapses in logic, assumptions about what readers know, and omissions of essential information. These issues can be easily addressed by careful editing.
Third, while some editors may “push hard to make authors compress their language”, it’s not obvious why this should necessarily lead to poor writing. Several editing techniques exist to make writing more efficient by eliminating clutter and simplifying awkward constructions. Better editing also gives the writer space to include information that is essential for the non-specialist to understand the author’s story. Such scrupulous revision does not mean that authors “sacrifice precision and accuracy”; in fact, effective editing eliminates vagueness and restores, rather than diminishes, a text’s accuracy.
Since many young scientists often turn to high profile journals like Science, Nature, and Cell as models of how to write a research paper, if the models are weak, as Kennedy suggests, then a cycle of poor writing is perpetuated. Given such a prominent role, these journals have an obligation to make clarity a serious prerequisite for publishing a paper.
So we return to the question: can research articles be made more accessible? Careful analysis of the articles and Authors’ Summaries included in this experiment reveals that many obstacles undermining clear communication in the original manuscripts – also occur in the Summaries. Unfortunately, little will be gained if researchers fail to conquer errors of style and are simply made to write more.
Greater effort by both authors and journals – rather than Authors’ Summaries – will go a long way to increasing a paper’s readability. Authors could do more to revise their manuscripts while journals could apply more rigorous writing standards. Delaying the publication of papers until they meet established criteria for clear and accessible writing could provide a strong incentive for scientists to write with greater care.
I’d like to know what the other people think about this ‘experiment’ and if anyone else suspects that there may be other, more effective solutions to confused writing in science.