Wednesday: Hili dialogue

January 14, 2015 • 4:42 am

Hump Day! I have nothing to look forward to except a bibulous dinner with a friend (good) and writing a scientific paper (tedious). Writing the “methods and materials” section yesterday, I realized how much easier it is to write academic than popular science. In the former you can get away with the passive voice, with stilted prose, and with all kinds of generally bad and leaden writing: that’s the norm in science journals. I’ll try to force myself today to inject some lively prose into a forum that doesn’t really appreciate it.

But I digress. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is putting the clampers on Cyrus’s ebullience:

Cyrus: We are going for a walk!
Hili: Take it easy—he is still trying to take a picture of your enthusiasm.

P1020206

In Polish:
Cyrus: Idziemy na spacer!
Hili: Spokojnie, on jeszcze próbuje sfotografować twój entuzjazm.

 

27 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. But your digression is of great interest – to me at least. Just had a conversation with a Phd student who is part time – working full time. She was saying how she has struggled with the passive academic style. I would argue that it is high time we dropped that style. It harks back to the era when no one knew how significant the observer was in experiments. In translation/interpreting the idea of the neutrality of the translator/interpreter is long recognised as a myth. Why can a scientist not say ‘I’ or ‘we’? It is counter-factual I would argue to pretend to be a passive agent!

    1. Agreed, and I largely stopped using the passive voice (often quite awkward) some years ago. It’s a sad fact that some students are taught that the PROPER way to write a scientific paper is in tedious, dry prose. It’s supposed to be more “scholarly.” But that’s a guarantee that nobody will read it.

      Steve Gould used to write his papers in a lively style, and while I often disagreed with their content, you couldn’t fault him the prose! If any academic is reading this, I’d urge him or her to follow CS&N by teaching their students well. The principles of good writing hold just as much for a scientific paper as they do for a popular essay.

      1. I’ve read some pretty good ones lately on breast cancer research. They were actually nicely written because I didn’t think, “what the hell are they trying to say?” and I’m just a regular schmo!

  2. > In the former you can get away with the passive voice, with stilted prose, and with all kinds of generally bad and leaden writing: that’s the norm in science journals.

    Yeah, I can relate. Just reading a paper on ancient reef systems, and came across the following:

    “Rugose and tabulate corals were so devastated that it [the end-Permian] marks their total extinction.”

    Because “Rugose and tabulate corals died out.” would have been too simple?

    1. Exactly. Simple sentences, less Latinate, are more easily understandable & give clarity. OK technical terms can be required, often in profusion, but that does not mean you have to warble on sending your readers to sleep or to re-read umpteen times before they ‘get it’!

    2. That sentence sounded like the corals were sitting in group therapy lamenting their demise. 😀

  3. OT, but I think of interest to the blog owner since it is related to Nicholas Wade’s book:

    http://www.researchgate.net/publication/270344405_Genetic_polymorphisms_predict_national_differences_in_life_history_strategy_and_time_orientation

    This is yet another paper showing differences in gene frequencies in different human populations of genes associated with behavior.

    I think at this point it is safe to say that

    1) it is dishonest to say that there are no basis for Wade’s speculative part of the book
    2) it is to dishonest to oppose speculations that the diffences between human cultures may be influences by differing gene frequences, while ascribing to the speculations that differences between human cultures can not be influenced by differing gene frequences.

    2. Sorry, but I don’t accept the accusation that I’ve been dishonest. I still claim that there is not a shred of evidence for Wade’s claim that major differences in societies are due to small differences in gene frequencies among members of those societies. If they identify the genes responsible, then I’ll pay attention. And who ever said that differences between cultures cannot in principle be due to differences in gene frequencies.

      Sorry, but if you’re accusing me of dishonesty, then you should go elsewhere.

      And by the way, the paper you cite is just an abstract, and the full paper hasn’t even appeared yet! Talk about drawing premature conclusions!

      Finally, why are you posting this on a Hili dialogue? Couldn’t contain your excitement about the big discovery of this paper?

  5. Perked-up ears and a smile (and I’ll bet his tail is wagging too). Yes, that’s an excited d*g!

  6. WRT writing styles, I rather love Richard Feynman’s way of lecturing (‘splaining) as well as his writing:
    http://www.amazon.com/Six-Easy-Pieces-Essentials-Explained/dp/0465025277/ref=la_B000AQ47U8_1_6/175-8162777-2559868?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421249291&sr=1-6
    http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=16VZFCJ1VP34Z8DP50WZ
    http://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-boxed-set/dp/0465023827/ref=la_B000AQ47U8_1_1/175-8162777-2559868?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421249291&sr=1-1

  8. My friend, who I took to hear Steven Pinker talk about his new book, was so happy to hear him criticize academic prose. She was a medical writer for years and had to read through those things!

      1. The Q&A was pretty good and there were some young people there too (in highschool/elementary school) so that was nice to see – on a Friday night too.

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