This document summarizes key principles for scientific writing based on how readers interpret text. It discusses how readers have expectations about text structure and where to find certain types of information. Specifically, it notes that readers expect: the subject and verb of a sentence to be close together; each part of a text to have a single clear point; and emphasized information to appear at the end of a sentence. The document provides an example scientific paragraph and rewrites it to better meet reader expectations and make the text easier to understand.
This article describes a new way to calculate binomial confidence limits, ones that define an interval that is narrower than the limits calculated by the Score, Wald, or Exact methods, and that is more defensible from a theoretical point of view since, unlike other binomial confidence limits, these Reasonable Limits are not statistically significantly different from the sample proportion on which they are based.
O documento discute o ensino da psicologia médica e a importância do "não fazer nada". Ele argumenta que (1) alunos de medicina têm medo de conversar com pacientes sem ter nada a oferecer, mas descobrem que os pacientes se sentem bem apenas por serem ouvidos, (2) médicos têm dificuldade em lidar com o sofrimento dos pacientes sem intervir, e (3) o avanço do conhecimento médico pode levar a intervenções desnecessárias se o médico não souber quando parar.
Este documento descreve o plano de curso para a disciplina de Psicologia Médica I. O curso abordará questões relacionadas à formação médica e construção da identidade do médico. Serão realizadas aulas expositivas e os alunos deverão escrever uma monografia em grupo sobre um tópico relacionado. A avaliação consistirá em uma prova final e na nota da monografia.
Acting as Advocate? Seven steps for libraries in the data decadeLizLyon
UKOLN advocates that libraries take seven steps to support data management and open science in the data decade:
1) Provide briefings on cloud data services in partnership with IT services.
2) Build usable data management tools in partnership with researchers.
3) Develop data sustainability strategies and articulate the costs and benefits.
4) Publish case studies on open science to show benefits of universal data sharing.
5) Present at university ethics committees to highlight open data issues.
6) Raise awareness of citizen science opportunities and guidelines for good practice.
7) Promote data citation and attribution to embed in publication practice.
Programa da Disciplina de Psicologia Médica 1 da Unifesp 2014.Elisa Brietzke
1) O documento descreve um plano de disciplina sobre psicologia médica para estudantes de medicina. 2) O curso abordará questões relacionadas à formação médica, identidade profissional e desafios atuais da medicina. 3) As aulas serão ministradas por professores especializados e incluirão leituras, debates e uma monografia.
O documento descreve o cronograma de um curso de Psiquiatria para alunos do primeiro ano de medicina, ocorrendo entre agosto e dezembro de 2014. As aulas abordarão diversos temas relacionados à formação médica e à psicologia, ministradas por diferentes professores em anfiteatros da universidade.
This is one of the topic covered here to give a flavour of the Operations Research(OR) topics covered in the CD ROM.This ebook will be available by the end of September 2014 on snapdeal website.The OR topics covered are simplified through a number of solved illustrations and will be useful to BMS,MMS.MBA and CA students.
Texto "A Chegada e a Despedida" de Rubem AlvesElisa Brietzke
1) O documento discute a chegada e a despedida como parte natural da vida, comparando o nascimento à morte como momentos de passagem angustiantes através de um canal apertado.
2) Propõe a criação de uma nova especialidade médica, a "morienterapia", para cuidar com compaixão daqueles que estão morrendo, assim como a obstetrícia cuida daqueles que estão nascendo.
3) Argumenta que os médicos deveriam aceitar a morte como parte natural da vida, em vez de se sentirem
This article describes a new way to calculate binomial confidence limits, ones that define an interval that is narrower than the limits calculated by the Score, Wald, or Exact methods, and that is more defensible from a theoretical point of view since, unlike other binomial confidence limits, these Reasonable Limits are not statistically significantly different from the sample proportion on which they are based.
O documento discute o ensino da psicologia médica e a importância do "não fazer nada". Ele argumenta que (1) alunos de medicina têm medo de conversar com pacientes sem ter nada a oferecer, mas descobrem que os pacientes se sentem bem apenas por serem ouvidos, (2) médicos têm dificuldade em lidar com o sofrimento dos pacientes sem intervir, e (3) o avanço do conhecimento médico pode levar a intervenções desnecessárias se o médico não souber quando parar.
Este documento descreve o plano de curso para a disciplina de Psicologia Médica I. O curso abordará questões relacionadas à formação médica e construção da identidade do médico. Serão realizadas aulas expositivas e os alunos deverão escrever uma monografia em grupo sobre um tópico relacionado. A avaliação consistirá em uma prova final e na nota da monografia.
Acting as Advocate? Seven steps for libraries in the data decadeLizLyon
UKOLN advocates that libraries take seven steps to support data management and open science in the data decade:
1) Provide briefings on cloud data services in partnership with IT services.
2) Build usable data management tools in partnership with researchers.
3) Develop data sustainability strategies and articulate the costs and benefits.
4) Publish case studies on open science to show benefits of universal data sharing.
5) Present at university ethics committees to highlight open data issues.
6) Raise awareness of citizen science opportunities and guidelines for good practice.
7) Promote data citation and attribution to embed in publication practice.
Programa da Disciplina de Psicologia Médica 1 da Unifesp 2014.Elisa Brietzke
1) O documento descreve um plano de disciplina sobre psicologia médica para estudantes de medicina. 2) O curso abordará questões relacionadas à formação médica, identidade profissional e desafios atuais da medicina. 3) As aulas serão ministradas por professores especializados e incluirão leituras, debates e uma monografia.
O documento descreve o cronograma de um curso de Psiquiatria para alunos do primeiro ano de medicina, ocorrendo entre agosto e dezembro de 2014. As aulas abordarão diversos temas relacionados à formação médica e à psicologia, ministradas por diferentes professores em anfiteatros da universidade.
This is one of the topic covered here to give a flavour of the Operations Research(OR) topics covered in the CD ROM.This ebook will be available by the end of September 2014 on snapdeal website.The OR topics covered are simplified through a number of solved illustrations and will be useful to BMS,MMS.MBA and CA students.
Texto "A Chegada e a Despedida" de Rubem AlvesElisa Brietzke
1) O documento discute a chegada e a despedida como parte natural da vida, comparando o nascimento à morte como momentos de passagem angustiantes através de um canal apertado.
2) Propõe a criação de uma nova especialidade médica, a "morienterapia", para cuidar com compaixão daqueles que estão morrendo, assim como a obstetrícia cuida daqueles que estão nascendo.
3) Argumenta que os médicos deveriam aceitar a morte como parte natural da vida, em vez de se sentirem
This document summarizes a research paper that analyzed patterns in scientific abstracts. The paper built a corpus of 917 abstracts with 146,489 words from journals and conference proceedings in various fields including artificial intelligence, computer science, biology, linguistics, chemistry and anthropology. It explored characteristics of scientific abstracts at the lexical, syntactic and discourse levels to identify patterns that could be used to improve automatic summarization of scientific texts and help students write better abstracts. The identified patterns are useful not only for computational linguistics but also for teaching students how to effectively write abstracts in their field.
This document provides an introduction to grammars and languages from a computer science perspective. It defines language as an infinite set of sentences, where each sentence is a finite sequence of symbols from a finite alphabet. Grammars are described as a means to generate and describe the structure of the sentences in a language. The document outlines different views of language from communication, linguistics, and computer science to establish the terminology and scope used.
The document provides general guidelines for writing research papers, including recommendations for the different sections of long and short format papers. It advises researchers to think about future figures and experiments from the beginning of a project, assemble draft figures and key points before writing, and focus on clearly communicating conclusions and testing stated hypotheses. Researchers should also follow formatting guidelines, write concisely using the active voice, and have multiple people review drafts before submitting to a journal.
The document provides general guidelines for writing research papers, including recommendations for the different sections of long and short format papers. It advises researchers to think about future figures and experiments from the beginning of a project, assemble draft figures and key points before writing, and focus on clearly communicating conclusions and testing stated hypotheses. Researchers should also follow formatting guidelines, write concisely using the active voice, and have multiple people review drafts before submitting to a journal.
Analysis And Indexing General Terms ExperimentationAshley Hernandez
This paper reports on experiments with the first available test collection for searching spontaneous Czech speech transcripts. The collection consists of transcripts from interviews with Holocaust survivors that contain a high word error rate of around 35% due to the nature of the emotional speech. The authors transformed the collection into overlapping 3-minute "documents" and tested searching using word, stem, and lemma forms of queries and documents. They found that using lemmatization or stemming provided significant improvements over raw word matching, doubling average precision. However, the collection was limited by a lack of named entities from the topics present in the transcripts, contributing to poor performance on some topics.
The document provides guidance on writing different sections of a scientific paper, including the introduction, methods and materials, and results sections.
- The introduction should establish the field of work, previous research, and identify a gap or question that the current research will address.
- The methods section should describe the procedures and experiments in enough detail that another researcher could replicate the study. It may include study design, techniques, equipment, and statistical analysis methods.
- The results section presents the findings of the study objectively and logically, typically through tables, figures and graphs, with brief explanatory text to highlight key relationships in the data.
This document provides guidance on writing an effective lab report, outlining the typical components and purpose of each section. It describes that a lab report should document findings, communicate their significance, and demonstrate comprehension of the underlying concepts. The key components typically include a title page, abstract, introduction, methods, procedures, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. The introduction states the objectives and provides background, while the discussion analyzes and interprets the results in relation to the objectives and expectations. The conclusion states what is now known as a result of the experiment.
J.F. van Werven - Reconsidering Recursion (Master's Thesis)Jorike van Werven
This document is a master's thesis by J.F. van Werven on reconsidering recursion in linguistics. It provides an introduction stating that the recursion-only hypothesis has drawn much attention but lacks a precise definition of recursion. The thesis will investigate how recursion is perceived differently across fields like mathematics, computer science, and linguistics in order to understand the emergence of differing definitions. It outlines the chapters which will examine recursion in these formal sciences, its role in Chomsky's frameworks, definitions in linguistic literature, perspectives from psychology and biology, and reasons for misunderstandings about recursion.
The document discusses various theories and models of the psychology of reading. It describes the bottom-up, top-down, interactive, and metacognitive models of reading. The bottom-up model views reading as a linear process of decoding letters into words. The top-down model emphasizes using context and prior knowledge to understand text. The interactive model sees reading as using both bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously. The metacognitive model focuses on readers' thinking about their own reading processes. The document also discusses schema theory and several other specific theories and researchers that have contributed to the understanding of reading psychology.
Arágon et all english grammar in context for academic and professional purp...Telma Ventura
Science has become pervasive in modern societies and communicating scientific achievements to the wider public is important. There are many forms of scientific literature that fulfill this need, including scientific journals, magazines, books, and websites. More people are also being attracted to careers in science popularization and journalism.
1. Science communication has become important for informing the wider public about scientific achievements and discoveries. Scientific journals publish research results for the academic community, while magazines aim to engage broader audiences.
2. Learning science requires understanding specialized terminology from fields like physics and biology. Key terms relate to concepts, phenomena and processes unfamiliar to children.
3. Government science funding and corporate research have grown significantly in recent centuries. Some argue this increases incentives for scientific misconduct, though occasional instances are not solely modern occurrences.
This document discusses what research is and provides definitions from dictionaries. It states that research involves studying something thoroughly to find answers to questions. The document then discusses what is included in typical parts of a research paper such as the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references and appendixes. It explains that writing research papers is important as it teaches investigative and inquiry skills, builds career skills, and teaches critical thinking and logic. Overall, the document provides an overview of what research is and highlights the key components and benefits of writing a research paper.
This document discusses what research is and provides definitions from dictionaries. It states that research involves studying something thoroughly to find answers to questions. Research involves using systematic methods to better understand events, problems or phenomena. It can also be defined as a careful consideration of a particular issue using scientific methods. The document then discusses key parts of a typical research paper such as the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references and appendix. It explains what is included in each section. Finally, it discusses some of the most important advantages of writing a research paper, including that it teaches investigative skills, inquiry-based techniques, career skills, critical thinking, logic and the basic ingredients of argument.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirectBrain and Cogniti.docxdonnajames55
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Brain and Cognition
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c
Neuroscience and everyday life: Facing the translation problem
Jolien C. Franckena,⁎, Marc Slorsb
a Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15915, 1001 NK Amsterdam, Netherlands
b Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, Netherlands
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Concepts
Constructs
Taxonomy
Cognitive ontology
Folk psychology
Phenomenology
Eliminativism
A B S T R A C T
To enable the impact of neuroscientific insights on our daily lives, careful translation of research findings is
required. However, neuroscientific terminology and common-sense concepts are often hard to square. For ex-
ample, when neuroscientists study lying to allow the use of brain scans for lie-detection purposes, the concept of
lying in the scientific case differs considerably from the concept in court. Furthermore, lying and other cognitive
concepts are used unsystematically and have an indirect and divergent mapping onto brain activity. Therefore,
scientific findings cannot inform our practical concerns in a straightforward way. How then can neuroscience
ultimately help determine if a defendant is legally responsible, or help someone understand their addiction
better? Since the above-mentioned problems provide serious obstacles to move from science to common-sense,
we call this the 'translation problem'. Here, we describe three promising approaches for neuroscience to face this
translation problem. First, neuroscience could propose new 'folk-neuroscience' concepts, beyond the traditional
folk-psychological array, which might inform and alter our phenomenology. Second, neuroscience can modify
our current array of common-sense concepts by refining and validating scientific concepts. Third, neuroscience
can change our views on the application criteria of concepts such as responsibility and consciousness. We believe
that these strategies to deal with the translation problem should guide the practice of neuroscientific research to
be able to contribute to our day-to-day life more effectively.
1. Introduction
Can brain scans read thoughts? If so, can they detect lies? Questions
such as these are frequently being asked today, and jurors seriously
consider the use of neuroimaging data in court (Costandi, 2013;
McCabe, Castel, & Rhodes, 2011; Roskies, Schweitzer, & Saks, 2013).
This example illustrates, on the one hand, the quick rise of the field of
neuroscience. On the other hand, however, it highlights the demand for
translation of scientific findings about the brain into language that is
appropriate to improve practices outside of cognitive neuroscience.
Usually this is the language of common-sense cognitive concepts (‘CC-
Cs’, such as ‘lying’). The use of CCCs to report research findings suggests
that these terms have the same meaning in scientific and non-scient.
The document summarizes a study that used lexical frequency software to analyze and compare the writing styles of native English speakers and advanced French-speaking English learners. The software generated frequency profiles of word categories and individual words. The analysis found that learner writing overused determiners, pronouns, and adverbs, while underusing conjunctions, prepositions, and nouns compared to native writing. More detailed analysis revealed specific words that were significantly over- or underused, such as learners overusing the pronoun "I" and underusing subordinating conjunctions. The study aims to demonstrate how automatic profiling can reveal stylistic characteristics of learner language.
A Context For Instructional Research On Reading ComprehensionDon Dooley
This document summarizes research on reading comprehension from the 1970s in three areas: basic cognitive processes, classroom instruction research, and research on how comprehension is taught. Regarding cognitive processes, it finds that both content knowledge and reading comprehension processes like inference influence comprehension. Classroom research showed time on task, content covered, and lower student error rates correlated with achievement gains. However, studies found little direct instruction in comprehension strategies was occurring. Future research should explore explicitly teaching students comprehension strategies.
This document provides guidance on how to write an abstract. It discusses what an abstract is, who writes them and for what purposes. It covers the different types of abstracts, including descriptive and informative. It provides details on what to include in an abstract, such as the problem, methodology, results and conclusions, and what not to include, like references and quotations. Examples of descriptive and informative abstracts are also given.
This document provides an overview of Module 1 of a course on scientific writing. It discusses the importance of publishing for scientists and introduces scientific papers as a literary genre. It covers key elements of papers such as titles, authorship, references, and sections. Guidelines are provided for writing clear, concise titles and defining author contributions. The goal is to teach researchers how to structure their papers and communicate their findings effectively.
Připravujete svůj první vědecký článek v anglickém jazyce? Umíte si poradit s abstraktem? Rádi byste získali lepší kompetence v tom, jak by měl být článek strukturován? Potřebujete vědět, které části odborného textu jsou klíčové pro čtenáře, které pro recenzenty? Chcete se vyvarovat chyb, které se opakovaně v cizojazyčných vědeckých článcích vyskytují? Pak byl právě pro vás určen seminář, který vedl zkušený lektor akademického psaní v angličtině z Centra jazykové přípravy MU PhDr. Robert Helán, Ph.D.
1) A depressão pós-parto afeta entre 8 a 15% das mulheres e requer alta suspeição e triagem universal.
2) Os tratamentos para a depressão pós-parto, como terapia cognitivo-comportamental, antidepressivos e suplementos de ômega-3, são altamente eficazes, com taxas de resposta de até 80%.
3) É importante um diagnóstico preciso e tratamento multidisciplinar, preferencialmente em centros de psiquiatria perinatal, para prevenir a cronicidade da depressão pós-parto
Sindrome metabolismo e humor setembro 2021Elisa Brietzke
Este documento discute a relação entre transtornos do humor e metabolismo. Apresenta evidências de que a obesidade e o diabetes tipo 2 estão associados a um maior risco de depressão. Explora possíveis mecanismos fisiopatológicos, como resistência à insulina e inflamação, e discute potenciais tratamentos metabólicos para a depressão, como insulina intranasal, liraglutida e dieta cetogênica.
This document summarizes a research paper that analyzed patterns in scientific abstracts. The paper built a corpus of 917 abstracts with 146,489 words from journals and conference proceedings in various fields including artificial intelligence, computer science, biology, linguistics, chemistry and anthropology. It explored characteristics of scientific abstracts at the lexical, syntactic and discourse levels to identify patterns that could be used to improve automatic summarization of scientific texts and help students write better abstracts. The identified patterns are useful not only for computational linguistics but also for teaching students how to effectively write abstracts in their field.
This document provides an introduction to grammars and languages from a computer science perspective. It defines language as an infinite set of sentences, where each sentence is a finite sequence of symbols from a finite alphabet. Grammars are described as a means to generate and describe the structure of the sentences in a language. The document outlines different views of language from communication, linguistics, and computer science to establish the terminology and scope used.
The document provides general guidelines for writing research papers, including recommendations for the different sections of long and short format papers. It advises researchers to think about future figures and experiments from the beginning of a project, assemble draft figures and key points before writing, and focus on clearly communicating conclusions and testing stated hypotheses. Researchers should also follow formatting guidelines, write concisely using the active voice, and have multiple people review drafts before submitting to a journal.
The document provides general guidelines for writing research papers, including recommendations for the different sections of long and short format papers. It advises researchers to think about future figures and experiments from the beginning of a project, assemble draft figures and key points before writing, and focus on clearly communicating conclusions and testing stated hypotheses. Researchers should also follow formatting guidelines, write concisely using the active voice, and have multiple people review drafts before submitting to a journal.
Analysis And Indexing General Terms ExperimentationAshley Hernandez
This paper reports on experiments with the first available test collection for searching spontaneous Czech speech transcripts. The collection consists of transcripts from interviews with Holocaust survivors that contain a high word error rate of around 35% due to the nature of the emotional speech. The authors transformed the collection into overlapping 3-minute "documents" and tested searching using word, stem, and lemma forms of queries and documents. They found that using lemmatization or stemming provided significant improvements over raw word matching, doubling average precision. However, the collection was limited by a lack of named entities from the topics present in the transcripts, contributing to poor performance on some topics.
The document provides guidance on writing different sections of a scientific paper, including the introduction, methods and materials, and results sections.
- The introduction should establish the field of work, previous research, and identify a gap or question that the current research will address.
- The methods section should describe the procedures and experiments in enough detail that another researcher could replicate the study. It may include study design, techniques, equipment, and statistical analysis methods.
- The results section presents the findings of the study objectively and logically, typically through tables, figures and graphs, with brief explanatory text to highlight key relationships in the data.
This document provides guidance on writing an effective lab report, outlining the typical components and purpose of each section. It describes that a lab report should document findings, communicate their significance, and demonstrate comprehension of the underlying concepts. The key components typically include a title page, abstract, introduction, methods, procedures, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. The introduction states the objectives and provides background, while the discussion analyzes and interprets the results in relation to the objectives and expectations. The conclusion states what is now known as a result of the experiment.
J.F. van Werven - Reconsidering Recursion (Master's Thesis)Jorike van Werven
This document is a master's thesis by J.F. van Werven on reconsidering recursion in linguistics. It provides an introduction stating that the recursion-only hypothesis has drawn much attention but lacks a precise definition of recursion. The thesis will investigate how recursion is perceived differently across fields like mathematics, computer science, and linguistics in order to understand the emergence of differing definitions. It outlines the chapters which will examine recursion in these formal sciences, its role in Chomsky's frameworks, definitions in linguistic literature, perspectives from psychology and biology, and reasons for misunderstandings about recursion.
The document discusses various theories and models of the psychology of reading. It describes the bottom-up, top-down, interactive, and metacognitive models of reading. The bottom-up model views reading as a linear process of decoding letters into words. The top-down model emphasizes using context and prior knowledge to understand text. The interactive model sees reading as using both bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously. The metacognitive model focuses on readers' thinking about their own reading processes. The document also discusses schema theory and several other specific theories and researchers that have contributed to the understanding of reading psychology.
Arágon et all english grammar in context for academic and professional purp...Telma Ventura
Science has become pervasive in modern societies and communicating scientific achievements to the wider public is important. There are many forms of scientific literature that fulfill this need, including scientific journals, magazines, books, and websites. More people are also being attracted to careers in science popularization and journalism.
1. Science communication has become important for informing the wider public about scientific achievements and discoveries. Scientific journals publish research results for the academic community, while magazines aim to engage broader audiences.
2. Learning science requires understanding specialized terminology from fields like physics and biology. Key terms relate to concepts, phenomena and processes unfamiliar to children.
3. Government science funding and corporate research have grown significantly in recent centuries. Some argue this increases incentives for scientific misconduct, though occasional instances are not solely modern occurrences.
This document discusses what research is and provides definitions from dictionaries. It states that research involves studying something thoroughly to find answers to questions. The document then discusses what is included in typical parts of a research paper such as the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references and appendixes. It explains that writing research papers is important as it teaches investigative and inquiry skills, builds career skills, and teaches critical thinking and logic. Overall, the document provides an overview of what research is and highlights the key components and benefits of writing a research paper.
This document discusses what research is and provides definitions from dictionaries. It states that research involves studying something thoroughly to find answers to questions. Research involves using systematic methods to better understand events, problems or phenomena. It can also be defined as a careful consideration of a particular issue using scientific methods. The document then discusses key parts of a typical research paper such as the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references and appendix. It explains what is included in each section. Finally, it discusses some of the most important advantages of writing a research paper, including that it teaches investigative skills, inquiry-based techniques, career skills, critical thinking, logic and the basic ingredients of argument.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirectBrain and Cogniti.docxdonnajames55
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Brain and Cognition
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c
Neuroscience and everyday life: Facing the translation problem
Jolien C. Franckena,⁎, Marc Slorsb
a Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15915, 1001 NK Amsterdam, Netherlands
b Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, Netherlands
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Concepts
Constructs
Taxonomy
Cognitive ontology
Folk psychology
Phenomenology
Eliminativism
A B S T R A C T
To enable the impact of neuroscientific insights on our daily lives, careful translation of research findings is
required. However, neuroscientific terminology and common-sense concepts are often hard to square. For ex-
ample, when neuroscientists study lying to allow the use of brain scans for lie-detection purposes, the concept of
lying in the scientific case differs considerably from the concept in court. Furthermore, lying and other cognitive
concepts are used unsystematically and have an indirect and divergent mapping onto brain activity. Therefore,
scientific findings cannot inform our practical concerns in a straightforward way. How then can neuroscience
ultimately help determine if a defendant is legally responsible, or help someone understand their addiction
better? Since the above-mentioned problems provide serious obstacles to move from science to common-sense,
we call this the 'translation problem'. Here, we describe three promising approaches for neuroscience to face this
translation problem. First, neuroscience could propose new 'folk-neuroscience' concepts, beyond the traditional
folk-psychological array, which might inform and alter our phenomenology. Second, neuroscience can modify
our current array of common-sense concepts by refining and validating scientific concepts. Third, neuroscience
can change our views on the application criteria of concepts such as responsibility and consciousness. We believe
that these strategies to deal with the translation problem should guide the practice of neuroscientific research to
be able to contribute to our day-to-day life more effectively.
1. Introduction
Can brain scans read thoughts? If so, can they detect lies? Questions
such as these are frequently being asked today, and jurors seriously
consider the use of neuroimaging data in court (Costandi, 2013;
McCabe, Castel, & Rhodes, 2011; Roskies, Schweitzer, & Saks, 2013).
This example illustrates, on the one hand, the quick rise of the field of
neuroscience. On the other hand, however, it highlights the demand for
translation of scientific findings about the brain into language that is
appropriate to improve practices outside of cognitive neuroscience.
Usually this is the language of common-sense cognitive concepts (‘CC-
Cs’, such as ‘lying’). The use of CCCs to report research findings suggests
that these terms have the same meaning in scientific and non-scient.
The document summarizes a study that used lexical frequency software to analyze and compare the writing styles of native English speakers and advanced French-speaking English learners. The software generated frequency profiles of word categories and individual words. The analysis found that learner writing overused determiners, pronouns, and adverbs, while underusing conjunctions, prepositions, and nouns compared to native writing. More detailed analysis revealed specific words that were significantly over- or underused, such as learners overusing the pronoun "I" and underusing subordinating conjunctions. The study aims to demonstrate how automatic profiling can reveal stylistic characteristics of learner language.
A Context For Instructional Research On Reading ComprehensionDon Dooley
This document summarizes research on reading comprehension from the 1970s in three areas: basic cognitive processes, classroom instruction research, and research on how comprehension is taught. Regarding cognitive processes, it finds that both content knowledge and reading comprehension processes like inference influence comprehension. Classroom research showed time on task, content covered, and lower student error rates correlated with achievement gains. However, studies found little direct instruction in comprehension strategies was occurring. Future research should explore explicitly teaching students comprehension strategies.
This document provides guidance on how to write an abstract. It discusses what an abstract is, who writes them and for what purposes. It covers the different types of abstracts, including descriptive and informative. It provides details on what to include in an abstract, such as the problem, methodology, results and conclusions, and what not to include, like references and quotations. Examples of descriptive and informative abstracts are also given.
This document provides an overview of Module 1 of a course on scientific writing. It discusses the importance of publishing for scientists and introduces scientific papers as a literary genre. It covers key elements of papers such as titles, authorship, references, and sections. Guidelines are provided for writing clear, concise titles and defining author contributions. The goal is to teach researchers how to structure their papers and communicate their findings effectively.
Připravujete svůj první vědecký článek v anglickém jazyce? Umíte si poradit s abstraktem? Rádi byste získali lepší kompetence v tom, jak by měl být článek strukturován? Potřebujete vědět, které části odborného textu jsou klíčové pro čtenáře, které pro recenzenty? Chcete se vyvarovat chyb, které se opakovaně v cizojazyčných vědeckých článcích vyskytují? Pak byl právě pro vás určen seminář, který vedl zkušený lektor akademického psaní v angličtině z Centra jazykové přípravy MU PhDr. Robert Helán, Ph.D.
Similar to The science of scientific writing (1) (20)
1) A depressão pós-parto afeta entre 8 a 15% das mulheres e requer alta suspeição e triagem universal.
2) Os tratamentos para a depressão pós-parto, como terapia cognitivo-comportamental, antidepressivos e suplementos de ômega-3, são altamente eficazes, com taxas de resposta de até 80%.
3) É importante um diagnóstico preciso e tratamento multidisciplinar, preferencialmente em centros de psiquiatria perinatal, para prevenir a cronicidade da depressão pós-parto
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2. Ketamine has rapid antidepressant effects within 24 hours when administered intravenously, but its effects only last 3-7 days without maintenance treatment. Repeated infusions over several weeks can provide more sustained benefits. Ketamine is generally well-tolerated but can increase blood pressure and heart rate.
3. While ket
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O documento discute transtornos de humor no pós-parto, incluindo o "blues do pós-parto", depressão pós-parto e psicose pós-parto. Ele descreve os sintomas, impactos e tratamentos desses transtornos, bem como estratégias de prevenção.
1. O documento discute como escrever artigos científicos, destacando a importância do título, objetivo e resumo.
2. Problemas comuns em títulos como ser muito vago ou restritivo são apontados.
3. A seção de resumo é destacada como essencial para atrair leitores.
Este artigo discute o tratamento da esquizofrenia com antipsicóticos atípicos. Os autores explicam que a esquizofrenia é uma das psicoses mais comuns que afeta cerca de 1% da população. Apresenta uma evolução crônica e gera consequências psicológicas e sociais devastadoras para os pacientes e suas famílias. O tratamento da esquizofrenia evoluiu ao longo do tempo, começando com a descoberta da clorpromazina em 1952 e mais recentemente com os antipsic
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Driving Business Innovation: Latest Generative AI Advancements & Success StorySafe Software
Are you ready to revolutionize how you handle data? Join us for a webinar where we’ll bring you up to speed with the latest advancements in Generative AI technology and discover how leveraging FME with tools from giants like Google Gemini, Amazon, and Microsoft OpenAI can supercharge your workflow efficiency.
During the hour, we’ll take you through:
Guest Speaker Segment with Hannah Barrington: Dive into the world of dynamic real estate marketing with Hannah, the Marketing Manager at Workspace Group. Hear firsthand how their team generates engaging descriptions for thousands of office units by integrating diverse data sources—from PDF floorplans to web pages—using FME transformers, like OpenAIVisionConnector and AnthropicVisionConnector. This use case will show you how GenAI can streamline content creation for marketing across the board.
Ollama Use Case: Learn how Scenario Specialist Dmitri Bagh has utilized Ollama within FME to input data, create custom models, and enhance security protocols. This segment will include demos to illustrate the full capabilities of FME in AI-driven processes.
Custom AI Models: Discover how to leverage FME to build personalized AI models using your data. Whether it’s populating a model with local data for added security or integrating public AI tools, find out how FME facilitates a versatile and secure approach to AI.
We’ll wrap up with a live Q&A session where you can engage with our experts on your specific use cases, and learn more about optimizing your data workflows with AI.
This webinar is ideal for professionals seeking to harness the power of AI within their data management systems while ensuring high levels of customization and security. Whether you're a novice or an expert, gain actionable insights and strategies to elevate your data processes. Join us to see how FME and AI can revolutionize how you work with data!
Ivanti’s Patch Tuesday breakdown goes beyond patching your applications and brings you the intelligence and guidance needed to prioritize where to focus your attention first. Catch early analysis on our Ivanti blog, then join industry expert Chris Goettl for the Patch Tuesday Webinar Event. There we’ll do a deep dive into each of the bulletins and give guidance on the risks associated with the newly-identified vulnerabilities.
TrustArc Webinar - 2024 Global Privacy SurveyTrustArc
How does your privacy program stack up against your peers? What challenges are privacy teams tackling and prioritizing in 2024?
In the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey, we asked over 1,800 global privacy professionals and business executives to share their perspectives on the current state of privacy inside and outside of their organizations. This year’s report focused on emerging areas of importance for privacy and compliance professionals, including considerations and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, building brand trust, and different approaches for achieving higher privacy competence scores.
See how organizational priorities and strategic approaches to data security and privacy are evolving around the globe.
This webinar will review:
- The top 10 privacy insights from the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey
- The top challenges for privacy leaders, practitioners, and organizations in 2024
- Key themes to consider in developing and maintaining your privacy program
Fueling AI with Great Data with Airbyte WebinarZilliz
This talk will focus on how to collect data from a variety of sources, leveraging this data for RAG and other GenAI use cases, and finally charting your course to productionalization.
zkStudyClub - LatticeFold: A Lattice-based Folding Scheme and its Application...Alex Pruden
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Paper Link: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/257
For the full video of this presentation, please visit: https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2024/06/temporal-event-neural-networks-a-more-efficient-alternative-to-the-transformer-a-presentation-from-brainchip/
Chris Jones, Director of Product Management at BrainChip , presents the “Temporal Event Neural Networks: A More Efficient Alternative to the Transformer” tutorial at the May 2024 Embedded Vision Summit.
The expansion of AI services necessitates enhanced computational capabilities on edge devices. Temporal Event Neural Networks (TENNs), developed by BrainChip, represent a novel and highly efficient state-space network. TENNs demonstrate exceptional proficiency in handling multi-dimensional streaming data, facilitating advancements in object detection, action recognition, speech enhancement and language model/sequence generation. Through the utilization of polynomial-based continuous convolutions, TENNs streamline models, expedite training processes and significantly diminish memory requirements, achieving notable reductions of up to 50x in parameters and 5,000x in energy consumption compared to prevailing methodologies like transformers.
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I develop the Ruby programming language, RubyGems, and Bundler, which are package managers for Ruby. Today, I will introduce how to enhance the security of your application using open-source software (OSS) examples from Ruby and RubyGems.
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Next, let's discuss package managers. Package managers play a critical role in the OSS ecosystem. I'll explain how to manage library dependencies in your application.
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Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-und-domino-lizenzkostenreduzierung-in-der-welt-von-dlau/
DLAU und die Lizenzen nach dem CCB- und CCX-Modell sind für viele in der HCL-Community seit letztem Jahr ein heißes Thema. Als Notes- oder Domino-Kunde haben Sie vielleicht mit unerwartet hohen Benutzerzahlen und Lizenzgebühren zu kämpfen. Sie fragen sich vielleicht, wie diese neue Art der Lizenzierung funktioniert und welchen Nutzen sie Ihnen bringt. Vor allem wollen Sie sicherlich Ihr Budget einhalten und Kosten sparen, wo immer möglich. Das verstehen wir und wir möchten Ihnen dabei helfen!
Wir erklären Ihnen, wie Sie häufige Konfigurationsprobleme lösen können, die dazu führen können, dass mehr Benutzer gezählt werden als nötig, und wie Sie überflüssige oder ungenutzte Konten identifizieren und entfernen können, um Geld zu sparen. Es gibt auch einige Ansätze, die zu unnötigen Ausgaben führen können, z. B. wenn ein Personendokument anstelle eines Mail-Ins für geteilte Mailboxen verwendet wird. Wir zeigen Ihnen solche Fälle und deren Lösungen. Und natürlich erklären wir Ihnen das neue Lizenzmodell.
Nehmen Sie an diesem Webinar teil, bei dem HCL-Ambassador Marc Thomas und Gastredner Franz Walder Ihnen diese neue Welt näherbringen. Es vermittelt Ihnen die Tools und das Know-how, um den Überblick zu bewahren. Sie werden in der Lage sein, Ihre Kosten durch eine optimierte Domino-Konfiguration zu reduzieren und auch in Zukunft gering zu halten.
Diese Themen werden behandelt
- Reduzierung der Lizenzkosten durch Auffinden und Beheben von Fehlkonfigurationen und überflüssigen Konten
- Wie funktionieren CCB- und CCX-Lizenzen wirklich?
- Verstehen des DLAU-Tools und wie man es am besten nutzt
- Tipps für häufige Problembereiche, wie z. B. Team-Postfächer, Funktions-/Testbenutzer usw.
- Praxisbeispiele und Best Practices zum sofortigen Umsetzen
Freshworks Rethinks NoSQL for Rapid Scaling & Cost-EfficiencyScyllaDB
Freshworks creates AI-boosted business software that helps employees work more efficiently and effectively. Managing data across multiple RDBMS and NoSQL databases was already a challenge at their current scale. To prepare for 10X growth, they knew it was time to rethink their database strategy. Learn how they architected a solution that would simplify scaling while keeping costs under control.
Monitoring and Managing Anomaly Detection on OpenShift.pdfTosin Akinosho
Monitoring and Managing Anomaly Detection on OpenShift
Overview
Dive into the world of anomaly detection on edge devices with our comprehensive hands-on tutorial. This SlideShare presentation will guide you through the entire process, from data collection and model training to edge deployment and real-time monitoring. Perfect for those looking to implement robust anomaly detection systems on resource-constrained IoT/edge devices.
Key Topics Covered
1. Introduction to Anomaly Detection
- Understand the fundamentals of anomaly detection and its importance in identifying unusual behavior or failures in systems.
2. Understanding Edge (IoT)
- Learn about edge computing and IoT, and how they enable real-time data processing and decision-making at the source.
3. What is ArgoCD?
- Discover ArgoCD, a declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes, and its role in deploying applications on edge devices.
4. Deployment Using ArgoCD for Edge Devices
- Step-by-step guide on deploying anomaly detection models on edge devices using ArgoCD.
5. Introduction to Apache Kafka and S3
- Explore Apache Kafka for real-time data streaming and Amazon S3 for scalable storage solutions.
6. Viewing Kafka Messages in the Data Lake
- Learn how to view and analyze Kafka messages stored in a data lake for better insights.
7. What is Prometheus?
- Get to know Prometheus, an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit, and its application in monitoring edge devices.
8. Monitoring Application Metrics with Prometheus
- Detailed instructions on setting up Prometheus to monitor the performance and health of your anomaly detection system.
9. What is Camel K?
- Introduction to Camel K, a lightweight integration framework built on Apache Camel, designed for Kubernetes.
10. Configuring Camel K Integrations for Data Pipelines
- Learn how to configure Camel K for seamless data pipeline integrations in your anomaly detection workflow.
11. What is a Jupyter Notebook?
- Overview of Jupyter Notebooks, an open-source web application for creating and sharing documents with live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text.
12. Jupyter Notebooks with Code Examples
- Hands-on examples and code snippets in Jupyter Notebooks to help you implement and test anomaly detection models.
Skybuffer AI: Advanced Conversational and Generative AI Solution on SAP Busin...Tatiana Kojar
Skybuffer AI, built on the robust SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), is the latest and most advanced version of our AI development, reaffirming our commitment to delivering top-tier AI solutions. Skybuffer AI harnesses all the innovative capabilities of the SAP BTP in the AI domain, from Conversational AI to cutting-edge Generative AI and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). It also helps SAP customers safeguard their investments into SAP Conversational AI and ensure a seamless, one-click transition to SAP Business AI.
With Skybuffer AI, various AI models can be integrated into a single communication channel such as Microsoft Teams. This integration empowers business users with insights drawn from SAP backend systems, enterprise documents, and the expansive knowledge of Generative AI. And the best part of it is that it is all managed through our intuitive no-code Action Server interface, requiring no extensive coding knowledge and making the advanced AI accessible to more users.
JavaLand 2024: Application Development Green Masterplan
The science of scientific writing (1)
1. [This Article appeared in the American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1990), Volume 78, 550-558. Retyped and
posted with permission.]
The Science of Scientific Writing
If the reader is to grasp what the writer means,
the writer must understand what the reader needs
George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan*
*George D. Gopen is associate professor of English and Director of Writing Programs at Duke University. He holds a Ph.D.
in English from Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Judith A. Swan teaches scientific writing at
Princeton University. Her Ph.D., which is in biochemistry, was earned at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Address
for Gopen: 307 Allen Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
Science is often hard to read. Most people assume that its difficulties are born out of necessity, out of
the extreme complexity of scientific concepts, data and analysis. We argue here that complexity of
thought need not lead to impenetrability of expression; we demonstrate a number of rhetorical principles
that can produce clarity in communication without oversimplifying scientific issues. The results are
substantive, not merely cosmetic: Improving the quality of writing actually improves the quality of
thought.
The fundamental purpose of scientific discourse is not the mere presentation of information and thought,
but rather its actual communication. It does not matter how pleased an author might be to have
converted all the right data into sentences and paragraphs; it matters only whether a large majority of the
reading audience accurately perceives what the author had in mind. Therefore, in order to understand
how best to improve writing, we would do well to understand better how readers go about reading. Such
an understanding has recently become available through work done in the fields of rhetoric, linguistics
and cognitive psychology. It has helped to produce a methodology based on the concept of reader
expectations.
Writing with the Reader in Mind: Expectation and Context
Readers do not simply read; they interpret. Any piece of prose, no matter how short, may "mean" in 10
(or more) different ways to 10 different readers. This methodology of reader expectations is founded on
the recognition that readers make many of their most important interpretive decisions about the
substance of prose based on clues they receive from its structure.
This interplay between substance and structure can be demonstrated by something as basic as a simple
2. table. Let us say that in tracking the temperature of a liquid over a period of time, an investigator takes
measurements every three minutes and records a list of temperatures. Those data could be presented by a
number of written structures. Here are two possibilities:
t(time)=15’, T(temperature)=32º, t=0’, T=25º;
t=6’, T=29º; t=3’, T=27º; t=12’, T=32º; t=9’;
T=31º
time (min) temperature(ºC)
0 25
3 27
6 29
9 31
12 32
15 32
Precisely the same information appears in both formats, yet most readers find the second easier to
interpret. It may be that the very familiarity of the tabular structure makes it easier to use. But, more
significantly, the structure of the second table provides the reader with an easily perceived context (time)
in which the significant piece of information (temperature) can be interpreted. The contextual material
appears on the left in a pattern that produces an expectation of regularity; the interesting results appear
on the right in a less obvious pattern, the discovery of which is the point of the table.
If the two sides of this simple table are reversed, it becomes much harder to read.
temperature(ºC) time(min)
25 0
27 3
29 6
31 9
32 12
32 15
Since we read from left to right, we prefer the context on the left, where it can more effectively
familiarize the reader. We prefer the new, important information on the right, since its job is to intrigue
the reader.
Information is interpreted more easily and more uniformly if it is placed where most readers expect to
find it. These needs and expectations of readers affect the interpretation not only of tables and
illustrations but also of prose itself. Readers have relatively fixed expectations about where in the
structure of prose they will encounter particular items of its substance. If writers can become
consciously aware of these locations, they can better control the degrees of recognition and emphasis a
reader will give to the various pieces of information being presented. Good writers are intuitively aware
of these expectations; that is why their prose has what we call "shape."
This underlying concept of reader expectation is perhaps most immediately evident at the level of the
largest units of discourse. (A unit of discourse is defined as anything with a beginning and an end: a
clause, a sentence, a section, an article, etc.) A research article, for example, is generally divided into
recognizable sections, sometimes labeled Introduction, Experimental Methods, Results and Discussion.
When the sections are confused--when too much experimental detail is found in the Results section, or
when discussion and results intermingle--readers are often equally confused. In smaller units of
discourse the functional divisions are not so explicitly labeled, but readers have definite expectations all
3. the same, and they search for certain information in particular places. If these structural expectations are
continually violated, readers are forced to divert energy from understanding the content of a passage to
unraveling its structure. As the complexity of the context increases moderately, the possibility of
misinterpretation or noninterpretation increases dramatically.
We present here some results of applying this methodology to research reports in the scientific literature.
We have taken several passages from research articles (either published or accepted for publication) and
have suggested ways of rewriting them by applying principles derived from the study of reader
expectations. We have not sought to transform the passages into "plain English" for the use of the
general public; we have neither decreased the jargon nor diluted the science. We have striven not for
simplification but for clarification.
Reader Expectations for the Structure of Prose
Here is our first example of scientific prose, in its original form:
The smallest of the URF’s (URFA6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of
phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene has been
identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.
The functional significance of the other URF’s has been, on the contrary, elusive. Recently,
however, immunoprecipitation experiments with antibodies to purified, rotenone-sensitive
NADH-ubiquinone oxido-reductase [hereafter referred to as respiratory chain NADH
dehydrogenase or complex I] from bovine heart, as well as enzyme fractionation studies, have
indicated that six human URF’s (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4, URF4L, and URF5,
hereafter referred to as ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L, and ND5) encode subunits of complex I.
This is a large complex that also contains many subunits synthesized in the cytoplasm.*
[*The full paragraph includes one more sentence: "Support for such functional identification of the URF products has come
from the finding that the purified rotenone-sensitive NADH dehydrogenase from Neurospora crassa contains several
subunits synthesized within the mitochondria, and from the observation that the stopper mutant of Neurospora crassa, whose
mtDNA lacks two genes homologous to URF2 and URF3, has no functional complex I." We have omitted this sentence both
because the passage is long enough as is and because it raises no additional structural issues.]
Ask any ten people why this paragraph is hard to read, and nine are sure to mention the technical
vocabulary; several will also suggest that it requires specialized background knowledge. Those problems
turn out to be only a small part of the difficulty. Here is the passage again, with the difficult words
temporarily lifted:
The smallest of the URF’s, and [A], has been identified as a [B] subunit 8 gene. The functional
significance of the other URF’s has been, on the contrary, elusive. Recently, however, [C]
experiments, as well as [D] studies, have indicated that six human URF’s [1-6] encode subunits of
Complex I. This is a large complex that also contains many subunits synthesized in the cytoplasm.
It may now be easier to survive the journey through the prose, but the passage is still difficult. Any
number of questions present themselves: What has the first sentence of the passage to do with the last
sentence? Does the third sentence contradict what we have been told in the second sentence? Is the
functional significance of URF’s still "elusive"? Will this passage lead us to further discussion about
4. URF’s, or about Complex I, or both?
Information is interpreted more easily and more
uniformly if it is placed where most readers expect
to find it.
Knowing a little about the subject matter does not clear up all the confusion. The intended audience of
this passage would probably possess at least two items of essential technical information: first, "URF"
stands for "Uninterrupted Reading Frame," which describes a segment of DNA organized in such a way
that it could encode a protein, although no such protein product has yet been identified; second, both
APTase and NADH oxido-reductase are enzyme complexes central to energy metabolism. Although this
information may provide some sense of comfort, it does little to answer the interpretive questions that
need answering. It seems the reader is hindered by more than just the scientific jargon.
To get at the problem, we need to articulate something about how readers go about reading. We proceed
to the first of several reader expectations.
Subject-Verb Separation
Look again at the first sentence of the passage cited above. It is relatively long, 42 words; but that turns
out not to be the main cause of its burdensome complexity. Long sentences need not be difficult to read;
they are only difficult to write. We have seen sentences of over 100 words that flow easily and
persuasively toward their clearly demarcated destination. Those well-wrought serpents all had
something in common: Their structure presented information to readers in the order the readers needed
and expected it.
Beginning with the exciting material and ending
with a lack of luster often leaves us disappointed
and destroys our sense of momentum.
The first sentence of our example passage does just the opposite: it burdens and obstructs the reader,
because of an all-too-common structural defect. Note that the grammatical subject ("the smallest") is
separated from its verb ("has been identified") by 23 words, more than half the sentence. Readers expect
a grammatical subject to be followed immediately by the verb. Anything of length that intervenes
between subject and verb is read as an interruption, and therefore as something of lesser importance.
5. The reader’s expectation stems from a pressing need for syntactic resolution, fulfilled only by the arrival
of the verb. Without the verb, we do not know what the subject is doing, or what the sentence is all
about. As a result, the reader focuses attention on the arrival of the verb and resists recognizing anything
in the interrupting material as being of primary importance. The longer the interruption lasts, the more
likely it becomes that the "interruptive" material actually contains important information; but its
structural location will continue to brand it as merely interruptive. Unfortunately, the reader will not
discover its true value until too late-until the sentence has ended without having produced anything of
much value outside of that subject-verb interruption.
In this first sentence of the paragraph, the relative importance of the intervening material is difficult to
evaluate. The material might conceivably be quite significant, in which case the writer should have
positioned it to reveal that importance. Here is one way to incorporate it into the sentence structure:
The smallest of the URF’s is URFA6L, a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of
phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene; it has
been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8
gene.
On the other hand, the intervening material might be a mere aside that diverts attention from more
important ideas; in that case the writer should have deleted it, allowing the prose to drive more directly
toward its significant point:
The smallest of the URF’s (URFA6L) has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently
discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.
Only the author could tell us which of these revisions more accurately reflects his intentions.
These revisions lead us to a second set of reader expectations. Each unit of discourse, no matter what the
size, is expected to serve a single function, to make a single point. In the case of a sentence, the point is
expected to appear in a specific place reserved for emphasis.
The Stress Position
It is a linguistic commonplace that readers naturally emphasize the material that arrives at the end of a
sentence. We refer to that location as a "stress position." If a writer is consciously aware of this
tendency, she can arrange for the emphatic information to appear at the moment the reader is naturally
exerting the greatest reading emphasis. As a result, the chances greatly increase that reader and writer
will perceive the same material as being worthy of primary emphasis. The very structure of the sentence
thus helps persuade the reader of the relative values of the sentence’s contents.
The inclination to direct more energy to that which arrives last in a sentence seems to correspond to the
way we work at tasks through time. We tend to take something like a "mental breath" as we begin to
read each new sentence, thereby summoning the tension with which we pay attention to the unfolding of
the syntax. As we recognize that the sentence is drawing toward its conclusion, we begin to exhale that
mental breath. The exhalation produces a sense of emphasis. Moreover, we delight in being rewarded at
the end of a labor with something that makes the ongoing effort worthwhile. Beginning with the exciting
6. material and ending with a lack of luster often leaves us disappointed and destroys our sense of
momentum. We do not start with the strawberry shortcake and work our way up to the broccoli.
When the writer puts the emphatic material of a sentence in any place other than the stress position, one
of two things can happen; both are bad. First, the reader might find the stress position occupied by
material that clearly is not worthy of emphasis. In this case, the reader must discern, without any
additional structural clue, what else in the sentence may be the most likely candidate for emphasis.
There are no secondary structural indications to fall back upon. In sentences that are long, dense or
sophisticated, chances soar that the reader will not interpret the prose precisely as the writer intended.
The second possibility is even worse: The reader may find the stress position occupied by something
that does appear capable of receiving emphasis, even though the writer did not intend to give it any
stress. In that case, the reader is highly likely to emphasize this imposter material, and the writer will
have lost an important opportunity to influence the reader’s interpretive process.
The stress position can change in size from sentence to sentence. Sometimes it consists of a single word;
sometimes it extends to several lines. The definitive factor is this: The stress position coincides with the
moment of syntactic closure. A reader has reached the beginning of the stress position when she knows
there is nothing left in the clause or sentence but the material presently being read. Thus a whole list,
numbered and indented, can occupy the stress position of a sentence if it has been clearly announced as
being all that remains of that sentence. Each member of that list, in turn, may have its own internal stress
position, since each member may produce its own syntactic closure.
Within a sentence, secondary stress positions can be formed by the appearance of a properly used colon
or semicolon; by grammatical convention, the material preceding these punctuation marks must be able
to stand by itself as a complete sentence. Thus, sentences can be extended effortlessly to dozens of
words, as long as there is a medial syntactic closure for every piece of new, stress-worthy information
along the way. One of our revisions of the initial sentence can serve as an example:
The smallest of the URF’s is URFA6L, a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of
phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene; it has
been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8
gene.
By using a semicolon, we created a second stress position to accommodate a second piece of
information that seemed to require emphasis.
We now have three rhetorical principles based on reader expectations: First, grammatical subjects
should be followed as soon as possible by their verbs; second, every unit of discourse, no matter the
size, should serve a single function or make a single point; and, third, information intended to be
emphasized should appear at points of syntactic closure. Using these principles, we can begin to unravel
the problems of our example prose.
Note the subject-verb separation in the 62-word third sentence of the original passage:
Recently, however, immunoprecipitation experiments with antibodies to purified,
rotenone-sensitive NADH-ubiquinone oxido-reductase [hereafter referred to as respiratory chain
NADH dehydrogenase or complex I] from bovine heart, as well as enzyme fractionation studies,
have indicated that six human URF’s (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4, URF4L, and URF5,
7. hereafter referred to as ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L and ND5) encode subunits of complex I.
After encountering the subject ("experiments"), the reader must wade through 27 words (including three
hyphenated compound words, a parenthetical interruption and an "as well as" phrase) before alighting on
the highly uninformative and disappointingly anticlimactic verb ("have indicated"). Without a moment
to recover, the reader is handed a "that" clause in which the new subject ("six human URF’s") is
separated from its verb ("encode") by yet another 20 words.
If we applied the three principles we have developed to the rest of the sentences of the example, we
could generate a great many revised versions of each. These revisions might differ significantly from
one another in the way their structures indicate to the reader the various weights and balances to be
given to the information. Had the author placed all stress-worthy material in stress positions, we as a
reading community would have been far more likely to interpret these sentences uniformly.
We couch this discussion in terms of "likelihood" because we believe that meaning is not inherent in
discourse by itself; "meaning" requires the combined participation of text and reader. All sentences are
infinitely interpretable, given an infinite number of interpreters. As communities of readers, however,
we tend to work out tacit agreements as to what kinds of meaning are most likely to be extracted from
certain articulations. We cannot succeed in making even a single sentence mean one and only one thing;
we can only increase the odds that a large majority of readers will tend to interpret our discourse
according to our intentions. Such success will follow from authors becoming more consciously aware of
the various reader expectations presented here.
W e cannot succeed in making even a single
sentence mean one and only one thing; we can only
increase the odds that a large majority of readers
will tend to interpret our discourse according to our
intentions.
Here is one set of revisionary decisions we made for the example:
The smallest of the URF’s, URFA6L, has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently
discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene; but the functional significance of other URF’s has
been more elusive. Recently, however, several human URF’s have been shown to encode subunits
of rotenone-sensitive NADH-ubiquinone oxido-reductase. This is a large complex that also
contains many subunits synthesized in the cytoplasm; it will be referred to hereafter as respiratory
chain NADH dehydrogenase or complex I. Six subunits of Complex I were shown by enzyme
fractionation studies and immunoprecipitation experiments to be encoded by six human URF’s
(URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4, URF4L, and URF5); these URF’s will be referred to subsequently as
ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L and ND5.
8. Sheer length was neither the problem nor the solution. The revised version is not noticeably shorter than
the original; nevertheless, it is significantly easier to interpret. We have indeed deleted certain words,
but not on the basis of wordiness or excess length. (See especially the last sentence of our revision.)
When is a sentence too long? The creators of readability formulas would have us believe there exists
some fixed number of words (the favorite is 29) past which a sentence is too hard to read. We disagree.
We have seen 10-word sentences that are virtually impenetrable and, as we mentioned above, 100-word
sentences that flow effortlessly to their points of resolution. In place of the word-limit concept, we offer
the following definition: A sentence is too long when it has more viable candidates for stress positions
than there are stress positions available. Without the stress position’s locational clue that its material is
intended to be emphasized, readers are left too much to their own devices in deciding just what else in a
sentence might be considered important.
In revising the example passage, we made certain decisions about what to omit and what to emphasize.
We put subjects and verbs together to lessen the reader’s syntactic burdens; we put the material we
believed worthy of emphasis in stress positions; and we discarded material for which we could not
discern significant connections. In doing so, we have produced a clearer passage--but not one that
necessarily reflects the author’s intentions; it reflects only our interpretation of the author’s intentions.
The more problematic the structure, the less likely it becomes that a grand majority of readers will
perceive the discourse in exactly the way the author intended.
T he information that begins a sentence establishes
for the reader a perspective for viewing the
sentence as a unit.
It is probable that many of our readers--and perhaps even the authors--will disagree with some of our
choices. If so, that disagreement underscores our point: The original failed to communicate its ideas and
their connections clearly. If we happened to have interpreted the passage as you did, then we can make a
different point: No one should have to work as hard as we did to unearth the content of a single passage
of this length.
The Topic Position
To summarize the principles connected with the stress position, we have the proverbial wisdom, "Save
the best for last." To summarize the principles connected with the other end of the sentence, which we
will call the topic position, we have its proverbial contradiction, "First things first." In the stress position
the reader needs and expects closure and fulfillment; in the topic position the reader needs and expects
perspective and context. With so much of reading comprehension affected by what shows up in the topic
position, it behooves a writer to control what appears at the beginning of sentences with great care.
The information that begins a sentence establishes for the reader a perspective for viewing the sentence
9. as a unit: Readers expect a unit of discourse to be a story about whoever shows up first. "Bees disperse
pollen" and "Pollen is dispersed by bees" are two different but equally respectable sentences about the
same facts. The first tells us something about bees; the second tells us something about pollen. The
passivity of the second sentence does not by itself impair its quality; in fact, "Pollen is dispersed by
bees" is the superior sentence if it appears in a paragraph that intends to tell us a continuing story about
pollen. Pollen’s story at that moment is a passive one.
Readers also expect the material occupying the topic position to provide them with linkage (looking
backward) and context (looking forward). The information in the topic position prepares the reader for
upcoming material by connecting it backward to the previous discussion. Although linkage and context
can derive from several sources, they stem primarily from material that the reader has already
encountered within this particular piece of discourse. We refer to this familiar, previously introduced
material as "old information." Conversely, material making its first appearance in a discourse is "new
information." When new information is important enough to receive emphasis, it functions best in the
stress position.
When old information consistently arrives in the topic position, it helps readers to construct the logical
flow of the argument: It focuses attention on one particular strand of the discussion, both harkening
backward and leaning forward. In contrast, if the topic position is constantly occupied by material that
fails to establish linkage and context, readers will have difficulty perceiving both the connection to the
previous sentence and the projected role of the new sentence in the development of the paragraph as a
whole.
Here is a second example of scientific prose that we shall attempt to improve in subsequent discussion:
Large earthquakes along a given fault segment do not occur at random intervals because it takes
time to accumulate the strain energy for the rupture. The rates at which tectonic plates move and
accumulate strain at their boundaries are approximately uniform. Therefore, in first approximation,
one may expect that large ruptures of the same fault segment will occur at approximately constant
time intervals. If subsequent main shocks have different amounts of slip across the fault, then the
recurrence time may vary, and the basic idea of periodic mainshocks must be modified. For great
plate boundary ruptures the length and slip often vary by a factor of 2. Along the southern segment
of the San Andreas fault the recurrence interval is 145 years with variations of several decades.
The smaller the standard deviation of the average recurrence interval, the more specific could be
the long term prediction of a future mainshock.
This is the kind of passage that in subtle ways can make readers feel badly about themselves. The
individual sentences give the impression of being intelligently fashioned: They are not especially long or
convoluted; their vocabulary is appropriately professional but not beyond the ken of educated general
readers; and they are free of grammatical and dictional errors. On first reading, however, many of us
arrive at the paragraph’s end without a clear sense of where we have been or where we are going. When
that happens, we tend to berate ourselves for not having paid close enough attention. In reality, the fault
lies not with us, but with the author.
We can distill the problem by looking closely at the information in each sentence’s topic position:
Large earthquakes
The rates
10. Therefore...one
subsequent mainshocks
great plate boundary ruptures
the southern segment of the San Andreas fault
the smaller the standard deviation...
Much of this information is making its first appearance in this paragraph--in precisely the spot where the
reader looks for old, familiar information. As a result, the focus of the story constantly shifts. Given just
the material in the topic positions, no two readers would be likely to construct exactly the same story for
the paragraph as a whole.
If we try to piece together the relationship of each sentence to its neighbors, we notice that certain bits of
old information keep reappearing. We hear a good deal about the recurrence time between earthquakes:
The first sentence introduces the concept of nonrandom intervals between earthquakes; the second
sentence tells us that recurrence rates due to the movement of tectonic plates are more or less uniform;
the third sentence adds that the recurrence rates of major earthquakes should also be somewhat
predictable; the fourth sentence adds that recurrence rates vary with some conditions; the fifth sentence
adds information about one particular variation; the sixth sentence adds a recurrence-rate example from
California; and the last sentence tells us something about how recurrence rates can be described
statistically. This refrain of "recurrence intervals" constitutes the major string of old information in the
paragraph. Unfortunately, it rarely appears at the beginning of sentences, where it would help us
maintain our focus on its continuing story.
In reading, as in most experiences, we appreciate the opportunity to become familiar with a new
environment before having to function in it. Writing that continually begins sentences with new
information and ends with old information forbids both the sense of comfort and orientation at the start
and the sense of fulfilling arrival at the end. It misleads the reader as to whose story is being told; it
burdens the reader with new information that must be carried further into the sentence before it can be
connected to the discussion; and it creates ambiguity as to which material the writer intended the reader
to emphasize. All of these distractions require that readers expend a disproportionate amount of energy
to unravel the structure of the prose, leaving less energy available for perceiving content.
We can begin to revise the example by ensuring the following for each sentence:
1. The backward-linking old information appears in the topic position.
2. The person, thing or concept whose story it is appears in the topic position.
3. The new, emphasis-worthy information appears in the stress position.
Once again, if our decisions concerning the relative values of specific information differ from yours, we
can all blame the author, who failed to make his intentions apparent. Here first is a list of what we
perceived to be the new, emphatic material in each sentence:
time to accumulate strain energy along a fault
approximately uniform
large ruptures of the same fault
different amounts of slip
vary by a factor of 2
variations of several decades
11. predictions of future mainshock
Now, based on these assumptions about what deserves stress, here is our proposed revision:
Large earthquakes along a given fault segment do not occur at random intervals because it takes
time to accumulate the strain energy for the rupture. The rates at which tectonic plates move and
accumulate strain at their boundaries are roughly uniform. Therefore, nearly constant time
intervals (at first approximation) would be expected between large ruptures of the same fault
segment. [However?], the recurrence time may vary; the basic idea of periodic mainshocks may
need to be modified if subsequent mainshocks have different amounts of slip across the fault.
[Indeed?], the length and slip of great plate boundary ruptures often vary by a factor of 2. [For
example?], the recurrence intervals along the southern segment of the San Andreas fault is 145
years with variations of several decades. The smaller the standard deviation of the average
recurrence interval, the more specific could be the long term prediction of a future mainshock.
Many problems that had existed in the original have now surfaced for the first time. Is the reason
earthquakes do not occur at random intervals stated in the first sentence or in the second? Are the
suggested choices of "however," "indeed," and "for example" the right ones to express the connections
at those points? (All these connections were left unarticulated in the original paragraph.) If "for
example" is an inaccurate transitional phrase, then exactly how does the San Andreas fault example
connect to ruptures that "vary by a factor of 2"? Is the author arguing that recurrence rates must vary
because fault movements often vary? Or is the author preparing us for a discussion of how in spite of
such variance we might still be able to predict earthquakes? This last question remains unanswered
because the final sentence leaves behind earthquakes that recur at variable intervals and switches instead
to earthquakes that recur regularly. Given that this is the first paragraph of the article, which type of
earthquake will the article most likely proceed to discuss? In sum, we are now aware of how much the
paragraph had not communicated to us on first reading. We can see that most of our difficulty was
owing not to any deficiency in our reading skills but rather to the author’s lack of comprehension of our
structural needs as readers.
In our experience, the misplacement of old and
new information turns out to be he No. 1 problem in
American professional writing today.
In our experience, the misplacement of old and new information turns out to be the No. 1 problem in
American professional writing today. The source of the problem is not hard to discover: Most writers
produce prose linearly (from left to right) and through time. As they begin to formulate a sentence, often
their primary anxiety is to capture the important new thought before it escapes. Quite naturally they rush
to record that new information on paper, after which they can produce at their leisure contextualizing
material that links back to the previous discourse. Writers who do this consistently are attending more to
their own need for unburdening themselves of their information than to the reader’s need for receiving
the material. The methodology of reader expectations articulates the reader’s needs explicitly, thereby
12. making writers consciously aware of structural problems and ways to solve them.
Put in the topic position the old information that
links backward; put in the stress position the new
information you want the reader to emphasize.
A note of clarification: Many people hearing this structural advice tend to oversimplify it to the
following rule: "Put the old information in the topic position and the new information in the stress
position." No such rule is possible. Since by definition all information is either old or new, the space
between the topic position and the stress position must also be filled with old and new information.
Therefore the principle (not rule) should be stated as follows: "Put in the topic position the old
information that links backward; put in the stress position the new information you want the reader to
emphasize."
Perceiving Logical Gaps
When old information does not appear at all in a sentence, whether in the topic position or elsewhere,
readers are left to construct the logical linkage by themselves. Often this happens when the connections
are so clear in the writer’s mind that they seem unnecessary to state; at those moments, writers
underestimate the difficulties and ambiguities inherent in the reading process. Our third example
attempts to demonstrate how paying attention to the placement of old and new information can reveal
where a writer has neglected to articulate essential connections.
The enthalpy of hydrogen bond formation between the nucleoside bases 2’deoxyguanosine (dG)
and 2’deoxycytidine (dC) has been determined by direct measurement. dG and dC were
derivatized at the 5’ and 3’ hydroxyls with triisopropylsilyl groups to obtain solubility of the
nucleosides in non-aqueous solvents and to prevent the ribose hydroxyls from forming hydrogen
bonds. From isoperibolic titration measurements, the enthalpy of dC:dG base pair formation is
-6.65±0.32 kcal/mol.
Although part of the difficulty of reading this passage may stem from its abundance of specialized
technical terms, a great deal more of the difficulty can be attributed to its structural problems. These
problems are now familiar: We are not sure at all times whose story is being told; in the first sentence
the subject and verb are widely separated; the second sentence has only one stress position but two or
three pieces of information that are probably worthy of emphasis--"solubility ...solvents," "prevent...
from forming hydrogen bonds" and perhaps "triisopropylsilyl groups." These perceptions suggest the
following revision tactics:
1. Invert the first sentence, so that (a) the subject-verb-complement connection is unbroken, and (b)
"dG" and "dC" are introduced in the stress position as new and interesting information. (Note that
inverting the sentence requires stating who made the measurement; since the authors performed
13. the first direct measurement, recognizing their agency in the topic position may well be
appropriate.)
2. Since "dG and "dC" become the old information in the second sentence, keep them up front in the
topic position.
3. Since "triisopropylsilyl groups" is new and important information here, create for it a stress
position.
4. "Triisopropylsilyl groups" then becomes the old information of the clause in which its effects are
described; place it in the topic position of this clause.
5. Alert the reader to expect the arrival of two distinct effects by using the flag word "both." "Both"
notifies the reader that two pieces of new information will arrive in a single stress position.
Here is a partial revision based on these decisions:
We have directly measured the enthalpy of hydrogen bond formation between the nucleoside bases
2’deoxyguanosine (dG) and 2’deoxycytidine (dC). dG and dC were derivatized at the 5’ and 3’
hydroxyls with triisopropylsilyl groups; these groups serve both to solubilize the nucleosides in
non-aqueous solvents and to prevent the ribose hydroxyls from forming hydrogen bonds. From
isoperibolic titration measurements, the enthalpy of dC:dG base pair formation is -6.65±0.32
kcal/mol.
The outlines of the experiment are now becoming visible, but there is still a major logical gap. After
reading the second sentence, we expect to hear more about the two effects that were important enough to
merit placement in its stress position. Our expectations are frustrated, however, when those effects are
not mentioned in the next sentence: "From isoperibolic titration measurements, the enthalpy of dC:dG
base pair formation is -6.65±0.32 kcal/mol." The authors have neglected to explain the relationship
between the derivatization they performed (in the second sentence) and the measurements they made (in
the third sentence). Ironically, that is the point they most wished to make here.
At this juncture, particularly astute readers who are chemists might draw upon their specialized
knowledge, silently supplying the missing connection. Other readers are left in the dark. Here is one
version of what we think the authors meant to say, with two additional sentences supplied from a
knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry:
We have directly measured the enthalpy of hydrogen bond formation between the nucleoside bases
2’deoxyguanosine (dG) and 2’deoxycytidine (dC). dG and dC were derivatized at the 5’ and 3’
hydroxyls with triisopropylsiyl groups; these groups serve both to solubilize the nucleosides in
non-aqueous solvents and to prevent the ribose hydroxyls from forming hydrogen bonds.
Consequently, when the derivatized nucleosides are dissolved in non-aqueous solvents, hydrogen
bonds form almost exclusively between the bases. Since the interbase hydrogen bonds are the only
bonds to form upon mixing, their enthalpy of formation can be determined directly by measuring
the enthalpy of mixing. From our isoperibolic titration measurements, the enthalpy of dG:dC base
pair formation is -6.65±0.32 kcal/mol.
Each sentence now proceeds logically from its predecessor. We never have to wander too far into a
sentence without being told where we are and what former strands of discourse are being continued.
And the "measurements" of the last sentence has now become old information, reaching back to the
"measured directly" of the preceding sentence. (It also fulfills the promise of the "we have directly
measured" with which the paragraph began.) By following our knowledge of reader expectations, we
14. have been able to spot discontinuities, to suggest strategies for bridging gaps, and to rearrange the
structure of the prose, thereby increasing the accessibility of the scientific content.
Locating the Action
Our final example adds another major reader expectation to the list.
Transcription of the 5S RNA genes in the egg extract is TFIIIA-dependent. This is surprising,
because the concentration of TFIIIA is the same as in the oocyte nuclear extract. The other
transcription factors and RNA polymerase III are presumed to be in excess over available TFIIIA,
because tRNA genes are transcribed in the egg extract. The addition of egg extract to the oocyte
nuclear extract has two effects on transcription efficiency. First, there is a general inhibition of
transcription that can be alleviated in part by supplementation with high concentrations of RNA
polymerase III. Second, egg extract destabilizes transcription complexes formed with oocyte but
not somatic 5S RNA genes.
The barriers to comprehension in this passage are so many that it may appear difficult to know where to
start revising. Fortunately, it does not matter where we start, since attending to any one structural
problem eventually leads us to all the others.
We can spot one source of difficulty by looking at the topic positions of the sentences: We cannot tell
whose story the passage is. The story’s focus (that is, the occupant of the topic position) changes in
every sentence. If we search for repeated old information in hope of settling on a good candidate for
several of the topic positions, we find all too much of it: egg extract, TFIIIA, oocyte extract, RNA
polymerase III, 5S RNA, and transcription. All of these reappear at various points, but none announces
itself clearly as our primary focus. It appears that the passage is trying to tell several stories
simultaneously, allowing none to dominate.
We are unable to decide among these stories because the author has not told us what to do with all this
information. We know who the players are, but we are ignorant of the actions they are presumed to
perform. This violates yet another important reader expectation: Readers expect the action of a sentence
to be articulated by the verb.
Here is a list of the verbs in the example paragraph:
is
is...is
are presumed to be
are transcribed
has
is...can be alleviated
destabilizes
The list gives us too few clues as to what actions actually take place in the passage. If the actions are not
to be found in the verbs, then we as readers have no secondary structural clues for where to locate them.
Each of us has to make a personal interpretive guess; the writer no longer controls the reader’s
interpretive act.
15. As critical scientific readers, we would like to
concentrate our energy on whether the experiments
prove the hypotheses.
Worse still, in this passage the important actions never appear. Based on our best understanding of this
material, the verbs that connect these players are "limit" and "inhibit." If we express those actions as
verbs and place the most frequently occurring information--"egg extract" and "TFIIIA"--in the topic
position whenever possible,* we can generate the following revision:
In the egg extract, the availability of TFIIIA limits transcription of the 5S RNA genes. This is
surprising because the same concentration of TFIIIA does not limit transcription in the oocyte
nuclear extract. In the egg extract, transcription is not limited by RNA polymerase or other factors
because transcription of tRNA genes indicates that these factors are in excess over available
TFIIIA. When added to the nuclear extract, the egg extract affected the efficiency of transcription
in two ways. First, it inhibited transcription generally; this inhibition could be alleviated in part by
supplementing the mixture with high concentrations of RNA polymerase III. Second, the egg
extract destabilized transcription complexes formed by oocyte but not by somatic 5S genes.
[*We have chosen these two pieces of old information as the controlling contexts for the passage. That choice was neither
arbitrary nor born of logical necessity; it was simply an act of interpretation. All readers make exactly that kind of choice in
the reading of every sentence. The fewer the structural clues to interpretation given by the author, the more variable the
resulting interpretations will tend to be.]
As a story about "egg extract," this passage still leaves something to be desired. But at least now we can
recognize that the author has not explained the connection between "limit" and "inhibit." This
unarticulated connection seems to us to contain both of her hypotheses: First, that the limitation on
transcription is caused by an inhibitor of TFIIIA present in the egg extract; and, second, that the action
of that inhibitor can be detected by adding the egg extract to the oocyte extract and examining the effects
on transcription. As critical scientific readers, we would like to concentrate our energy on whether the
experiments prove the hypotheses. We cannot begin to do so if we are left in doubt as to what those
hypotheses might be--and if we are using most of our energy to discern the structure of the prose rather
than its substance.
Writing and the Scientific Process
We began this article by arguing that complex thoughts expressed in impenetrable prose can be rendered
accessible and clear without minimizing any of their complexity. Our examples of scientific writing
have ranged from the merely cloudy to the virtually opaque; yet all of them could be made significantly
more comprehensible by observing the following structural principles:
1. Follow a grammatical subject as soon as possible with its verb.
16. 2. Place in the stress position the "new information" you want the reader to emphasize.
3. Place the person or thing whose "story" a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence, in the
topic position.
4. Place appropriate "old information" (material already stated in the discourse) in the topic position
for linkage backward and contextualization forward.
5. Articulate the action of every clause or sentence in its verb.
6. In general, provide context for your reader before asking that reader to consider anything new.
7. In general, try to ensure that the relative emphases of the substance coincide with the relative
expectations for emphasis raised by the structure.
It may seem obvious that a scientific document is
incomplete without the interpretation of the writer;
it may not be so obvious that the document cannot
"exist" without the interpretation of each reader.
None of these reader-expectation principles should be considered "rules." Slavish adherence to them will
succeed no better than has slavish adherence to avoiding split infinitives or to using the active voice
instead of the passive. There can be no fixed algorithm for good writing, for two reasons. First, too many
reader expectations are functioning at any given moment for structural decisions to remain clear and
easily activated. Second, any reader expectation can be violated to good effect. Our best stylists turn out
to be our most skillful violators; but in order to carry this off, they must fulfill expectations most of the
time, causing the violations to be perceived as exceptional moments, worthy of note.
A writer’s personal style is the sum of all the structural choices that person tends to make when facing
the challenges of creating discourse. Writers who fail to put new information in the stress position of
many sentences in one document are likely to repeat that unhelpful structural pattern in all other
documents. But for the very reason that writers tend to be consistent in making such choices, they can
learn to improve their writing style; they can permanently reverse those habitual structural decisions that
mislead or burden readers.
We have argued that the substance of thought and the expression of thought are so inextricably
intertwined that changes in either will affect the quality of the other. Note that only the first of our
examples (the paragraph about URF’s) could be revised on the basis of the methodology to reveal a
nearly finished passage. In all the other examples, revision revealed existing conceptual gaps and other
problems that had been submerged in the originals by dysfunctional structures. Filling the gaps required
the addition of extra material. In revising each of these examples, we arrived at a point where we could
proceed no further without either supplying connections between ideas or eliminating some existing
material altogether. (Writers who use reader-expectation principles on their own prose will not have to
conjecture or infer; they know what the prose is intended to convey.) Having begun by analyzing the
structure of the prose, we were led eventually to reinvestigate the substance of the science.
17. The substance of science comprises more than the discovery and recording of data; it extends crucially
to include the act of interpretation. It may seem obvious that a scientific document is incomplete without
the interpretation of the writer; it may not be so obvious that the document cannot "exist" without the
interpretation of each reader. In other words, writers cannot "merely" record data, even if they try. In any
recording or articulation, no matter how haphazard or confused, each word resides in one or more
distinct structural locations. The resulting structure, even more than the meanings of individual words,
significantly influences the reader during the act of interpretation. The question then becomes whether
the structure created by the writer (intentionally or not) helps or hinders the reader in the process of
interpreting the scientific writing.
The writing principles we have suggested here make conscious for the writer some of the interpretive
clues readers derive from structures. Armed with this awareness, the writer can achieve far greater
control (although never complete control) of the reader’s interpretive process. As a concomitant
function, the principles simultaneously offer the writer a fresh re-entry to the thought process that
produced the science. In real and important ways, the structure of the prose becomes the structure of the
scientific argument. Improving either one will improve the other.
The methodology described in this article originated in the linguistic work of Joseph M. Williams of the
University of Chicago, Gregory G. Colomb of the Georgia Institute of Technology and George D.
Gopen. Some of the materials presented here were discussed and developed in faculty writing
workshops held at the Duke University Medical School.
Bibliography
Williams, Joseph M. 1988. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Scott, Foresman, & Co.
Colomb, Gregory G., and Joseph M. Williams. 1985. Perceiving structure in professional prose: a multiply determined
experience. In Writing in Non-Academic Settings, eds. Lee Odell and Dixie Goswami. Guilford Press, pp. 87-128.
Gopen, George D. 1987. Let the buyer in ordinary course of business beware: suggestions for revising the language of the
Uniform Commercial Code. University of Chicago Law Review 54:1178-1214.
Gopen, George D. 1990. The Common Sense of Writing: Teaching Writing from the Reader’s Perspective. To be published.