How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Bureaucratese
Avoiding jargon
Scientific style

Regrettably, too much scientific writing fits the first and third definitions of jargon. All too often, scientists write like the legendary Henry B. Quill, the bureaucrat described by Meyer (1977): “Quill had mastered the mother tongue of government. He smothered his verbs, camouflaged his subjects, and hid everything in an undergrowth of modifiers. He braided, beaded and fringed, giving elaborate expression to negligible thoughts, weasling [sic], hedging, and announcing the obvious. He spread generality like flood waters in a long, low valley. He sprinkled everything with aspects, feasibilities, alternatives, effectuations, analyzations, maximizations, implementations, contraindications and appurtenances. At his best, complete immobility set in, lasting sometimes for dozens of pages.”

(ScienceCartoonsPlus.com)

Some jargon, or bureaucratese, consists of clear, simple words but contains so many of them that their meaning is not readily evident. Examine the following, an important federal regulation (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 36, Paragraph 50.10) designed to protect trees from injury; this notice was posted in National Capital Park and Planning Commission recreation areas in the Washington area:

TREES, SHRUBS, PLANTS, GRASS, AND OTHER VEGETATION

(a) General Injury. No person shall prune, cut, carry away, pull up, dig, fell, bore, chop, saw, chip, pick, move, sever, climb, molest, take, break, deface, destroy, set fire to, burn, scorch, carve, paint, mark, or in any manner interfere with, tamper, mutilate, misuse, disturb or damage any tree, shrub, plant, grass, flower, or part thereof, nor shall any person permit any chemical, whether solid, fluid or gaseous to seep, drip, drain or be emptied, sprayed, dusted or injected upon, about or into any tree, shrub, plant, grass, flower or part thereof except when specifically authorized by competent authority; nor shall any person build fires or station or use any tar kettle, heater, road roller or other engine within an area covered by this part in such a manner that the vapor, fumes or heat therefrom may injure any tree or other vegetation.

(TRANSLATION: Don’t mess with growing things.)

Jargon does not necessarily involve the use of specialized words. Faced with a choice of two words, the jargonist always selects the longer one. The jargonist really gets his jollies, however, by turning short, simple statements into long strings of words. And, usually, the longer word or the longer series of words is not as clear as the simpler expression. We challenge anyone to show how “at this point in time” means, in its cumbersome way, more than the simple word “now.” The concept denoted by “if” is not improved by substituting the pompous expression “in the event that.”