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

Receiving the signals
What is scientific writing?
Some preliminaries

Many people have no doubt heard this question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it fall, does it make a sound? The correct answer is no. Sound is more than pressure waves, and indeed there can be no sound without someone to hear it.

Similarly, scientific communication is a two-way process. Just as a signal of any kind is useless unless it is perceived, a published scientific paper (signal) is useless unless it is both received and understood by its intended audience. Thus we can restate the axiom of science as follows: A scientific experiment is not complete until the results have been published and understood. A published paper is no more than pressure waves unless it is understood. Too many scientific papers fall silently in the woods.