From an Edtiorial in the current (April) issue of Nature Genetics (40, 375; 2008):

Communicating the details of science to nonspecialists is intrinsically hard because research entails specialized techniques for empirical testing of counterintuitive ideas. Public imagination may be more readily seized by stories that fit with preconceived models, and distortion can happen when communicators employ the most transmissible ideas. But when new concepts are successfully represented in everyday imagery, there is no reason the public cannot follow in detail the excitement of doing research. When engaged in the details of the analogy, nonspecialists can ask questions from a perspective that will be useful to the expert.

In an interview with Robyn Williams on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Science Show [15 March 2008 edition], Oxford University researcher Kim Nasmyth explained molecular mechanisms of chromosome segregation with a riddle. In his allegory, chromosomes are represented as pairs of socks.

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This is a paper under discussion at the Nature Network forum for good, clearly written papers.

SLAC1 is required for plant guard cell S-type anion channel function in stomatal signalling

Triin Vahisalu et al.

Nature 452, 487-491 (27 March 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06608.

Download PDF here

To discuss this paper, please visit the Nature Network good paper journal club.

Professor Linda Cooper writes at her Time for a Change blog on Nature Network about initiatives in which authors write a one-page initial summary to explain their research paper to a wide audience. She makes the argument that clearer writing of the paper itself serves a better purpose, for the following reasons:

Scientists need to communicate clearly -“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.”

Explain specialized terminology – “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” [by the journal office].

Compressed 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.”

The crucial question is whether research articles can be made more accessible. Professor Cooper writes that “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.”

Please add your views to those being expressed by scientists at Time for a Change blog.

In addition, Dr Martin Fenner and Dr Richard Grant have started a ‘good paper journal club’ at Nature Network, to promote good scientific writing by posting examples of well-written papers, and by discussion of these papers. Please do join this group, add examples of papers you consider to be well-written, and comment on those examples arlready under discussion.

For discussion at the Nature Network good paper journal club.

Holocene dwarf mammoths from Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic — download article as PDF

Nature 362, 337 – 340 (25 March 1993); doi:10.1038/362337a0

Holocene dwarf mammoths from Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic

S. L. Vartanyan*, V. E. Garutt† & A. V. Sher‡

*Wrangel Island State Reserve, 686870 Ushakovskoye, Magadan Region, Russia

†Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1 Universitetskaya naberezhnaya, 199034 St Petersburg, Russia

‡Severtsov Institute of Evolutionary Animal Morphology and Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 33 Leninskiy Prospect, 117071 Moscow, Russia

THE cause of extinction of the woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach), is still debated. A major environmental change at the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, hunting by early man, or both together are among the main explanations that have been suggested. But hardly anyone has doubted that mammoths had become extinct everywhere by around 9,500 years before present (BP). We report here new discoveries on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean that force this view to be revised. Along with normal-sized mammoth fossils dating to the end of the Pleistocene, numerous teeth of dwarf mammoth dated 7,000–4,000 yr BP have been found there. The island is thought to have become separated from the mainland by 12,000 yr BP. Survival of a mammoth population may be explained by local topography and climatic features, which permitted relictual preservation of communities of steppe plants. We interpret the dwarfing of the Wrangel mammoths as a result of the insularity effect, combined with a response to the general trend towards unfavourable environment in the Holocene.

Via Scott Keir on Nature Network:

Today (Thursday 6 March 2008) is World Book Day in the UK. Elsewhere in the world, the day falls on 23 April, traditionally held to be the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and death — but on this later date, the target audience of school students is usually on vacation in the UK.

Scott suggests that scientists with blogs, on Nature Network or elsewhere, write today about science books. And wearing his hat as manager for science book prizes at the Royal Society, Scott is offering to give a book to five people who write about science books on their blogs today. Henry Gee, on his Network blog End of the Pier Show, has followed suit by offering copies of his book Jacob’s Ladder: The History of the Human Genome, to the first few people who drop him a comment.

Scott has started the process of writing about books with an entertaining story about science books that have changed his life on his Network blog Mixed miscellanies. And Brian Clegg, on his Network blog PopSci, writes about how SF stimulated his interest in science.

Senior Nature editor Henry Gee writes on Nature Network’s Ask the Editor forum about writing a scientific paper.

“In my experience, the best-written submissions to Nature come from people whose first language is not English – and who have therefore been taught English, properly, as it no longer is in England……..I had a paper recently that was written in a most peculiar way, so much so that I had to turn to the author list – and found that both authors were English, working in England. In general, though, Nature editors aren’t looking for English that is beautiful (though it’s nice when it happens) but English that is comprehensible and clear, and whose meaning is unambiguous. If you are attempting to write in clear English, I find it’s best to adopt a few simple rules: the same rules that journalists use to improve the clarity of their prose.” Here are Henry’s rules:

1. Look at the lengths of your sentences. If you can split them into shorter sentences, do so.

2. Don’t use words or phrases in print that you wouldn’t use in conversation: write as you would speak. I find that if you’ve written something and you think it doesn’t make sense, speak it out loud. If it still seems like it doesn’t make sense, then it probably doesn’t.

3. Use simple sentence constructions that start at the beginning and progress in a stately and linear way to the end.

4. Avoid relative clauses.

5. Avoid the use of double negatives (cell biologists absolutely adore double negatives).

6. Avoid compound nouns (ditto).

7. Avoid neologisms (very popular in the United States).

8. Avoid creative-writing classes.

9. Audit English Literature classes. When looking for models of good writing, study writers who could really write. If you are English, read Jane Austen. If in the United States, read Hemingway.

The Nature Nanotechnology group Asia-Pacific and beyond (also on Nature Network) features some technical style tips with examples of how to shorten sentences, and lazy phrases to avoid. There is also excellent advice, including worked examples, at Time for a Change, the blog of Linda Cooper.