I must confess: I’m struggling a bit with my current course. Apart from the fact that I’m missing lectures, the cause can be found the course literature, which consists mainly of articles from scientific journals.

On a scale from Dim to Brilliant, I’d say I’m at least fairly Shiny (better than Bright, but not quite Sparkling), but no matter how polished your intellect, a poorly written text is still an unbelievable tedium to get through. And I’ve recently spent the better part of a workday trying to get through one of the worst examples of scientific literary compost I’ve ever seen. These are the first sentences of the introduction:

The purpose of this article is to review existing knowledge on analytical approaches to vulnerability to environmental change in order to propose synergies between research on vulnerability and on resilience of socialecological systems. The concept of vulnerability has been a powerful analytical tool for describing states of susceptibility to harm, powerlessness, and marginality of both physical and social systems, and for guiding normative analysis of actions to enhance well-being through reduction of risk.

It’s not that the subject is too difficult. It’s not that I don’t understand the words and concepts brought up here. It’s that there are 23 words with three or more syllables. It’s phrases like “synergy” and “normative analysis” and “reduction of risk”.

This is lazy writing, where the author hasn’t bothered to look over their text and even consider the possibility that there might be a better, simpler way to phrase all this. Even if you write for an audience well versed in your chosen subject, there is no excuse for obscurantism, even when it’s unintended.

On another course I’m taking - Presentation av naturvetenskap (”Presentation of natural science”, an ironically mistitled course that actually teaches presentation techniques for natural scientists) - we’ve discussed how communication in today’s society tends to shorter and more intense bursts of information. If you want to get a message across through text, it should be short, simple, with an informative headline, and with the most important bits first*. Apparently, even science journals are moving towards a simpler form of communication, with more subheadings and the like. I think this is good. As long as the content is not lost somewhere in the process, there can be nothing wrong with making science more accessible.

* I considered applying the rules we’ve learned to this blog. Then I realised it made the blog feel like homework, so I stopped. When good writing is second nature to me, the language and disposition of my blog posts will improve on their own. Until then, please make do.

writing, language, scientific journals