Scientific writing 3.0: A reader and writer's guide - Jean-Luc Lebrun, Justin Lebrun 2021

Keep the reader motivated
The reading toolkit

Attention is a precious resource, not to be wasted. It is the traffic controller in your brain, prioritizing whichever thought it deems most important. If attention wanes, our train of thoughts could derail or be redirected away from reading. Yet, for all its importance, attention is governed by a powerful ruler: motivation. Consider reading as a system with inputs and outputs, as shown in 1.

Motivation is one of the four critical inputs to the system. The fun of gaining knowledge (feedback loop) keeps motivation high or even increases it (for example when expectations are exceeded or when goals are met quickly). Motivation decreases when expectations are not met (syntax is too obscure, initial knowledge is insufficient, or paper is disappointing), when alternatives to reading become more attractive, or when the reader is tired.

Wrong title and unmet expectations

Vladimir is a young US researcher new to the field of English speech recognition. When Popov, his supervisor, sent him two months ago to the ICASSP conference in Paris to catch up with the latest happenings in the field, he could not have foreseen that this trip to France was about to put Vladimir in some sort of trouble.

Today, young Vladimir is searching online journal databases for general articles on automated speech recognition in over-the-phone plane reservation systems using dialogues. Fifth in a long list of titles, he spots the title: “Over-the-phone dialogue systems for travel information access.” He smiles. All the keywords he typed are there. He orders the paper through Joan, the research center’s librarian.

A day later, the paper lands on his desk with a yellow post-it note attached to the first page that says, “French girl friend you met in romantic Paris?”

Vladimir does not understand. He is happily married to Ruslana, a Russian. Puzzled, he removes the post-it that covers the abstract and starts reading. The abstract is at odds with the title. He had hoped for a general article, but he finds that it is about French speech in dialogue systems. His eyes move to the name of the first author: Michelle Mabel. A French woman! Darn! No wonder the librarian is teasing him. Why else would he be reading an article so foreign to his research field? Should he start reading? Or should he worry about the rumor that is probably going around the lab about a torrid extra-marital affair with a French woman? … (To be continued)

Dash or Fuel the Hopes of Your Readers, Your Choice

Motivating the reader starts with the title of your paper. It provides the initial reading impetus. The reader will scan hundreds of titles and select only a few. Imagine for a moment that the reader found your title interesting. You have what all authors dream of: the reader’s attention. So it is now up to you. Are you going to dash your reader’s hopes, or on the contrary, fuel them?

Dash — by a title that is not representative of the rest of the article

Fuel — by a title that is representative of the rest of the article

Vladimir decides to read it anyway. After all, the paper is only five pages long. He should be able to get through it fast. He will just skip the parts that do not interest him.

Half an hour later, he is only in the middle of page 2 reaching the end of the introduction, gasping for a graphic or a diagram to make things clearer. He glances anxiously at his watch. He has a meeting coming up with his team in 20 minutes. (To be continued)

Dash — by making clear that reading the article will require more time than anticipated

Fuel — by making clear that reading the article will require less time than anticipated

Figure 1

Reading, considered as a system, has four inputs and three main outputs. Prior to reading, each input has an initial value. That value will change over time because the outputs influence the inputs. For example, the more knowledge you get from the paper, the more knowledge you put back to facilitate further understanding. External factors influence the reading process. They either lubricate the process or create friction and inefficiencies. They indirectly affect the pace of absorption of knowledge, and therefore motivation, a critical input to the system. If reading was a transistor, motivation would be its base current that either shuts down or promotes the reading activity.

The introduction mentions French phonetics, and the differences in accents between the Chtimi and the Marseillais dialects. His knowledge of France is limited to football players and perfumes. He has heard of Zinedine Zidane, and Chanel #5 (he bought it in Paris for Ruslana’s birthday), but that’s about it. He glances at the reference section. No help there. He looks up Wikipedia online. No help there either. If he asks Joan, the librarian, she will ask him about his French girl friend, so he scraps that idea. By now, his motivation is at its lowest point, so he skips a few paragraphs and jumps to the part about dialogue modeling. (To be continued)

Dash — by not giving the reader the baseline knowledge required to read the paper

Fuel — by providing the reader with the baseline knowledge needed to read the paper

However, he did not know that his motivation could drop lower than its previous low level. The key paragraph that seemed to be precisely in his area of interest is totally obscure. He spends a good 5 minutes on it, and then gives up. (To be continued)

Dash — by using prose so obscure or complex in syntax that the reader gets discouraged and becomes unsure whether he or she understands correctly

Fuel — by using prose so clear that the reader is encouraged and sure that he or she understands correctly

He finally decides that the article is too specific. The semantic modeling will not apply to English at all. He won’t be able to use it. And his meeting starts in a few minutes. A colleague who is also going to the meeting appears in his cubicle, looks quickly at one of the subheadings of the paper and says, “Hey, Vlad! I didn’t know you were interested in French. Got a French girl friend? Does Ruslana know?”… Vladimir drops the paper in the trashcan. “It’s a mistake,” he says. (To be continued)

Dash — by making the reader doubt the validity, or applicability of the contribution

Fuel — by demonstrating the quality, validity, or applicability of the contribution

He rushes to his meeting. As he enters the room, all his colleagues shout what sounds like ’Bonjour’. Before he answers, he looks around and relaxes; his boss has not yet arrived. He says, “It is not what you think. The title was misleading.” They all laugh. At that moment, his boss enters the meeting room and hands Vladimir a paper: “Here, read this,” he says. “I have not read it, but it seems perfect for your research. It’s by… um, a French author.” The whole group collapses in laughter.

Dash — by boring the reader with a style lacking dynamism, a sentence structure lacking variety, new information lacking emphasis, and text lacking illustrations

Fuel — by captivating the reader with a dynamic style, a varied sentence structure, new information properly emphasized, and text rich in stories and illustrations

I deliberately chose a story to illustrate the various disappointments researchers experience while reading certain papers. How much more dynamic is the language of stories compared to the stiff classic scientific writing style. Deviating from the norm is often frowned upon (like ending sentences with a preposition). Yet, one section of your paper is ideally suited to accommodate such deviations: the introduction. You have a story to tell: the story of why you embarked on your research, why you chose a particular method, etc (see chapter on the introduction). Since it is a story, use the narrative story style to write it.

You can now see that your writing sustains the motivation of the reader through a combination of writing style, honest title, judicious detail and background, clear contribution, and good English.

Meet the Goals of Your Readers to Motivate Them

In our story, Vladimir (a newcomer to the field) is interested in general background. There are many kinds of readers, all coming to your paper with different motives and different levels of expertise. Satisfying and motivating them all is an impossible exercise if you do not really understand what readers hope to find in your paper. The following scenarios will help you understand their goals.

The field intelligence gatherer

Hi! I am a scientist working in the same field. I may not be doing exactly the same research, but I am a regular reader of the journal you read and attend the conferences you attend. I was the guy sitting on the fifth row facing you when you presented your paper in Korea last year. I have read most of your abstracts to keep up to date with what you’re doing.

First among the six reader profiles examined is the intelligence gatherer. Such scientists are interested in anything in abridged form: your abstract or conclusions, sometimes the introduction. They probably will not read your whole paper.

The competitor

Hi! You know me, and I know you. Although we have never met face to face, we reference each other in our papers. By the way, thanks for the citation. I am trying to find a niche where you are not playing, or maybe I’ll fix some of your problems in my next paper. Hey, who knows, maybe you are onto something I could benefit from. I’d love to chat or work with you on a common paper one of these days. Interested?

Even if some of your background is missing, competitors are able to fill in the blanks without your help. They will read your paper rapidly, starting with the reference section to see if their name is in it and if their own reading is up-to-date. They may also use your list of references to complete their own list. They will probably skip your introduction. Occasionally, competitors may be asked to review your article before publication.

The seeker of a problem to solve

Hi! You don’t know me. I am a senior researcher. I just completed a major project, and I am looking for something new to do. I am not quite familiar with your field, but it looks interesting, and it seems as though I could apply some of my skills and methods to your problems and get better results than you. I am reading your paper to find out.

Problem seekers may read the discussion, conclusions, and future work sections of your paper. Since their knowledge is not extensive, they will also read the introduction to bridge their knowledge gap.

The solution seeker

Help! I’m stuck. My results are average. I am pressured to find a better solution. I need to look at other ways of solving my problem. I started looking outside my own technology field to see if I could get fresh ideas and methods. I’m not too familiar with what you’re doing, but as I was browsing my list of titles, I discovered that you are working in the same application domain as I am.

Solution seekers will read the method section, the theoretical section, and anything else that can help them. They could be surgeons looking for artery modeling software, or AIDS researchers who heard that small-world networks have interesting applications in their field. Their knowledge gap may be very large. They are looking for general articles or even specific articles, which they will read in part, expecting to find a clear but substantial introduction with many references to further their education.

The young researcher

Hello! I’m fresh out of university, and quite new to this field. Your paper looks like a review paper. That’s exactly what I need right now. Nothing too complicated. Just enough for me to understand the field, its problems, and the solutions advocated by researchers. That will do just fine!

Young researchers will read the introduction and (perhaps) follow your trail of references. They do not expect to be able to make sense of everything the first time, but what little they can understand, they will be happy with. Their knowledge gap is great.

The serendipitous reader

Hi! Cute title you’ve got there. I had to read your paper. Such a title could only come from an interesting writer. I thought I would learn a few things, a paradigm shift maybe. I’m not sure that I will understand any of it, but it’s worth a try. Last time I did that, I learned quite a lot. The paper had won the Best Paper Award in an IEEE competition. I studied the paper. Although I did not understand much, I got quite a few hints on how to improve my scientific writing skills!

My point is this: researchers will come to your paper with different motivations and needs. A common mistake is to imagine the reader as another you, the competitor in this story or someone who knows your topic as well as yourself. As the author, you would be wise not to rush through the introduction and the list of references. You would also be wise to provide enough detail so that other researchers can check and validate your work: ’little validation, little value’.