Fun_People Archive
20 Jan
A Guide to Effective Scientific Communication

Date: Sat, 20 Jan 96 02:35:46 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: A Guide to Effective Scientific Communication

Forwarded-by: kwise@wn.net (Karen M Wise)

        A Guide to Effective Scientific Communication
        =============================================
Phrase:  It has long been known
Translation: I haven't bothered to look up the reference

Phrase:  It is believed
Translation:  I think

Phrase:  It is generally believed
Translation:  A couple of other guys think so, too

Phrase:  It is not unreasonable to assume
Translation:  If you believe this, you'll believe anything

Phrase:  Of great theoretical importance
Translation:  I find it kind of interesting

Phrase:  Of great practical importance
Translation:  I can get some mileage out of it

Phrase:  Typical results are shown
Translation:  The best results are shown

Phrase:  3 samples were chosen for further study
Translation:  The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them

Phrase:  The 4 hour sample was not studied
Translation:  I dropped it on the floor

Phrase:  The 4 hour determination may not be significant
Translation:  I dropped it on the floor, but  scooped most of it up

Phrase:  The significance of these results is unclear
Translation:  Look at the pretty artifact

Phrase:  It has not been possible to provide definitive answers
Translation:  The experiment was negative, but at least I can publish the
              data somewhere

Phrase:  Correct within an order of magnitude
Translation:  Wrong

Phrase:  It might be argued that
Translation:  I have such a good answer for that objection that I shall
              now raise it

Phrase:  Much additional work will be required
Translation:  This paper is not very good, but neither are all the others
              in this miserable field

Phrase:  These investigations proved highly rewarding
Translation:  My grant is going to be renewed!

Phrase:  I thank X for assistance with the experiments and Y for useful
         discussions on the interpretati0n of the data
Translation:  X did the experiment and Y explained it to me
prev [=] prev © 1996 Peter Langston []