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.
At Nature we as editors are required to write our own summaries of papers. These are posted online along with the paper on publication. Don’t know if this helps (or, indeed, if anyone notices…)
At Nature we as editors are required to write our own summaries of papers. These are posted online along with the paper on publication. Don’t know if this helps (or, indeed, if anyone notices…)
Henry,
I think it’s one thing for editors to write summaries and quite another to ask researchers to write even more – and include a summary of their work. Wouldn’t it would be better if scientists learned how to write more clearly – and edit vigorously – rather than add another page?
Yes, of course it would. We’ve been trying to persuade them to for ages !
But what are researchers to do? They rarely receive training in clear writing (and effective editing) and they use the journals as models of how to write a paper. (And as has been mentioned before, if the models are weak then a cycle of poor writing is perpetuated.)
I have two problems with the Authors’ Summary. 1) Writing the summary takes time. The authors should rather use this time to improve the language of the paper. 2) Having two texts both written by the authors can lead to confusion. Even with the best of efforts, subtle nuances of meaning might creep into the text.
Excellent post! I have one question though, which I hope someone can answer. When submitting an article for publication, who are we really writing to? In other words, should every research article be understandable to everyone? people in the same field (e.g. immunology)? or people who work on the same pathway? In journals such as Science and Nature, readers span a wide array of disciplines. Should the articles be written with this in mind?
A slightly formal answer to your question, for the Nature journals, is here at our author and reviewers’ website, Nuruddeen.
I hope this advice is helpful to past, present and future Nature journal authors. Suggestions for improving it are very welcome.
Nuruddeen,
I think you can reach both the specialist and general reader if you follow a few straightforward principles. One is to explain your important findings logically and precisely. The second is to make sure that your abstract, as well as the introduction and discussion section of your paper provide important information in places that readers expect. (There’s more to it of course, but in my experience, the best papers respect these guidelines).
You may also be interested to know that more often than not writers write for the specialist reader – when they ought to target the educated general reader – in other words, those readers who make decisions about publishing your paper or funding your grant. (The specialist represents only about 5 others who work in your small, highly specific area.)
I can appreciate the idea of the “Author’s Summary” that Science has been trying. Many of the articles (in chemistry and astronomy especially) are impenetrable. I’m personally only familiar with writing in biology, but Martin’s comment piqued my interest:
“Having two texts both written by the authors can lead to confusion. Even with the best of efforts, subtle nuances of meaning might creep into the text.”
I’m beginning to appreciate how every word is chosen carefully to say exactly what you did, and explicitly limit your statements to avoid implying that you did/found anything more. Writing a general summary with the same level of precision would be…difficult. Not to say the summary is a bad idea, but I can see that being a challenge.
In my view, the single simplest change any science writer can make is to switch from the passive voice to the active. Most scientific articles today sink under the burden of too many constructions like “has been determnined”, “is chosen”, “is perpetuated”, “are posted”, and so on.
Shiela, I agree that the passive voice, if over used, can drain energy from a text and make sentences longer. Aside from transforming passives into actives, scientists could improve the clarity of their writing if they structured their abstracts logically and organized the Introduction and Discussion sections of their manuscripts.
Linda
You are absolutely right, that every research paper or journal must have a informative and solid summery then only the common readers or the researchers would get the exact idea of the papers content. The research stdent can get good quality research papers and term papers in online, they can buy term paper in online.