Expectations from science - Set the reader’s expectations - The reading toolkit

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

Expectations from science
Set the reader’s expectations
The reading toolkit

Verbs, adjectives and adverbs make claims

The next example combines expectations from science and expectations from grammar.

Tom Smith’s assumption [4] that no top layer material could come from the by-products of the pinhole corrosion which had migrated is not supported by our data.

Despite all its problems, that sentence still manages to create an expectation. A scientific claim is made: the data does not support Tom Smith’s assumption. As scientists, we expect the writer to support his claim with data.

Here is the sentence again, but this time with verb closer to subject, and with added dynamism thanks to the active voice. This sentence is written in the present tense, a tense usually used for claims. The auxiliary “do” shows certainty.

Our data reveal that, contrary to Tom Smith’s assumption [4], the pinhole corrosion by-products do migrate to form part of the top layer material.

Have the expectations changed? What do you expect the writer to introduce in the next sentence? The data or Tom Smith? The majority of you will answer, “The data”. There is a slight difference with the first sentence, though: the expectations are more defined now. The reader expects proof of the claim regarding migration, or proof that the material found on the top layer comes from the pinhole. Tom Smith is now between commas, a side remark, and nobody cares about his assumption. The findings of the author are stated, not those of Tom Smith.

But imagine for an instant that you are the writer and you want to focus the reader’s attention, not on the data, but on Tom Smith’s assumption. How would you rewrite the previous sentence?

There are two ways of rewriting the sentence; both have in common the placement of Tom Smith at the end of the sentence.

Our data reveal that the pinhole corrosion by-products migrate to become part of the top layer material, contrary to Smith’s assumption [4]. Our data reveal that the pinhole corrosion by-products migrate to become part of the top layer material. These findings contradict Tom Smith’s assumption [4].

In this last sentence, Tom Smith’s assumption is no longer a side remark, it is the main point and it comes in a small package: a short punchy sentence. The reader is now curious. What did Tom Smith assume? Why is there a contradiction? We know what the findings of the writer are. What we do not know clearly is what Tom Smith assumed.

ImageExpectations of change are mostly set by the new information found at the very end of a sentence.

So far, we have looked at claims made by verbs (’is not supported,’ ’do migrate’). Adjectives and adverbs also make claims. Readers of scientific papers have different expectations than readers of novels. When a novelist writes: “the ferocious dog”, the reader’s imagination recreates the image of this dog from past face-to-face encounters or from movies where such dogs are seen. It may not be the type of ferocious dog the writer had in mind, but who cares — the more ferocious the reader makes it, the better! Unlike the scientist, the novelist does not have to convince the reader of the dog’s ferocity by measuring the surface of the barred dental area, the number of milliliters of saliva secreted per minute, or the dog’s pupil dilation — all this on live ferocious dogs of course. In vivo data collection is a dangerous occupation, especially if you want your population to be representative, and go beyond the Chihuahua to include German Shepherds, Doberman Pinschers, and Rottweilers.

Adjectives or adverbs are subjective. What is robust to you may be fragile to me. What is very fast to you may be moderately fast to me. In Science, adjectives and adverbs are claims. When the claim stated is widely accepted as true, the scientist does not expect the writer to justify it. But remember, what is obvious to an expert, may not be obvious to a non-expert who might still want you to justify your adjectival claim. It is safer to justify than to assume no justification is needed. And it is safer to define an adjective than to let the reader define it.

When feed gas changes from light to heavy gas, the plant load decreases by a small fraction (4.7%).

In this example, the adjective small is immediately quantified. Elsewhere in the paper is a table that gives the definition of what constitutes heavy, medium, and light feed gas, using feed gas components (mole fraction) expressed in % or ppm.

ImageQuantify adjectives when possible or define them.

Image

Read your abstract and your introduction. Highlight all adjectives in fluorescent yellow, and adverbs in fluorescent red. If your paper glows in the dark, then you have work to do. Examine each adjective and adverb. Are the claims justified? Would removing an adjective make you more authoritative? Could each adjective be replaced by a fact?

The main sections of a paper create their own expectations

The next few examples show that expectations are also guided by the part of the paper the sentences appear in.

This sentence, the first in the introduction, makes an adverbial and adjectival statement that creates a strong expectation regarding the goal of the paper.

Traditionally, airplane engine maintenance has been labor-intensive.’

Both “Traditionally” and “has been” confirm that the labor intensive situation is as true today as it was in the past. Expectations for the paper seem pretty clear: the topic of the paper is about airplane engine maintenance, and the reader assumes that the author has found a novel way to make airplane engine maintenance less labor-intensive by using robots, by reducing the number of parts, or by improving the quality and durability of airplane engine components. But wait! Why should the reader assume that the paper’s contribution is to reduce labor? It may be because of the word “traditionally”. In the context of a scientific paper, the ’traditional’ way of doing things is akin to saying the “old” or “low-tech” way. But in the context of a ethnographic paper, “traditionally” could instead imply a custom worth preserving! The point here is, some expectations come not from the grammar and vocabulary, but directly from the existing contextual knowledge of the reader. In the context of a modernized country, labour-intensive = high-costs = bad. Whereas in the context of a poor country with high unemployment, labour-intensive = many employment opportunities = good.

ImageContext of statement and general culture shape expectations.

This other example from the methodology section of a scientific paper establishes expectations around a time-ordered sequence. The clue that a time sequence is in progress is clear. Each sentence starts with, or contains, an expression related to time: ’day one,’ ’next three days,’ ’after,’ ’over the next…’.

On day one, thirty embryonic cells are placed in the culture dish. For the next three days they are left to proliferate. After proliferation, the cells are collected and put into new culture dishes, a process called replating. Over the next three weeks, 180 such replatings produce millions of normal and still undifferentiated embryonic cells.

ImageExpectations of sequential progression require sequence markers such as time markers, verb tense, or consecutive numbers. In this case, expectations are set by the first words of the sentence (not its last words).

In this final example, an abridged abstract, the author laid out the sentences according to a specific order expected by the reader: that of a scientific paper: aim, methodology, result, and significance, which also corresponds to that of the scientific process: observation, hypothesis, experiment, result and interpretation.

[Observation] The dengue genome forms a circle prior to replication, as is the case for the rotavirus. Since one end of the circling loop is at the 3 end of the genome where replication takes place, [Hypothesis] we wondered if the loop had an active role to play in the replication. [Experiment] After comparing the RNA synthesis capability of various whole and truncated dengue genomes using radio-labelled replication arrays, [Results] we found that a region other than the 3 end of the genome had an even larger role to play in the replication: the 5 end of the genome. Although far away from the 3 end, it seems to loop back into it. [Discussion] Thus, it may be that the promoter site for RNA synthesis resides in this unusual location. Looping would then be a means of bringing the promoter to where it can catalyze rapid duplication.

ImageExpectations of logical progression require sequence markers such as logical markers (’if,’ ’then,’ ’thus,’ ’therefore’), verb tense or auxiliary to express suggestions (’would,’ ’could,’ ’may’), or consecutive numbers expressing logical steps which are not necessarily based on a time sequence.

1 (2) is reprinted with permission from Sinclair M. (2001) Evolutionary Algorithms for optical network design: a genetic-algorithm / heuristic hybrid approach. (name of university). Thesis.