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

The energy bill
Control reading energy consumption
The reading toolkit

Réponse hémodynamique

I learned something truly fascinating by reading one of researcher Peter Hagoort’s neuroscience papers. It described what happens in our brain when, during reading, it encounters strange things such as “the car stopped at the casserole traffic light”. Something similar happened to me when I stumbled over the word ’hemodynamic’ in the article. Google took me to the website fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réponse_hémodynamique, and things became very interesting. I discovered that when reading becomes difficult, the body sends a little more blood (i.e. glucose and oxygen) to the brain. It does not take blood from one part of the brain to send it to another part so as to keep energy consumption constant; it simply increases the flow rate. Following the trail like a bloodhound, I discovered a French article written by André Syrota, director of the life science division at the Atomic Energy Commission, indicating that our brain’s additional work could consume the equivalent of “147 joules per minute of thought.”¹

How tired will your readers be at the end of their reading journey? How well did you manage their time and energy? As George Gopen points out, reading consumes energy.² Reading scientific articles consumes A LOT MORE ENERGY. Therefore, how do you reduce the reading energy bill, and how do you give your reader the assurance that plenty of energy refueling stations will be available along the long and winding road of your text?

The energy bill

Let, E_T, be the total energy required by the brain to process one sentence. E_T is the sum of two energies:

1)The syntactic energy E_SYN spent on analyzing sentence structure

2)The semantic energy E_SEM spent on connecting the sentence to the others that came before it, and on making sense of the sentence based on the meaning of its words.

Gopen considers these two energies to be in a “zero-sum relationship”.³ This means that if E_SYN becomes large, it will be at the expense of E_SEM: the more energy is spent on the analysis of the syntax of a sentence, the less energy will be left to understand the meaning of the sentence.

E_T = E_SYN + E_SEM

E_T is finite and allocated by the brain to the reading task. Similarly to our lungs, which give us the oxygen we need one breath at a time, the brain has enough energy to read one sentence at a time. E_T cannot increase beyond a certain limit fixed by physiological mechanisms: to increase the blood flow rate takes a few seconds and the size of the blood vessels in the brain (although extensible) is limited.

Your job, as writer, is to make sure that E_SYN + E_SEM < E_Tmax at all times by minimizing both the syntactic and the semantic energy required to read.

What would consume excessive syntactic energy, E_SYN?

· Anything ambiguous or unclear — a pronoun referring to an unclear noun, a convoluted modified noun, an ambiguous preposition

· Spelling or light grammar mistakes — missing definite article the, wrong preposition such as in instead of on, misused verb such as adopt instead of adapt

· Incomplete sentences, i.e. missing verb

· Anything taxing on the memory — long sentences (usually written in the passive voice), formulas, sentences with multiple caveats, provisos and qualifiers, sentences with deeply nested subordinates

· Grammatical structures from a foreign language applied to English without change

· Missing or erroneous punctuation

What would consume little syntactic energy, E_SYN?

· Short sentences with simple syntax: subject, verb, object

New ideas disrupt the logical flow of sentences.

· Sentences with a predictable pattern established with words such as although, because, however, or the more…the less.

The more energy is spent to analyze the syntax of a sentence, the less energy is left to understand what the sentence means.

· Sentences with subject close to verb, and verb close to object

Motivation allocates the total energy, E_T , to the reading task.

· Sentences with good punctuation

The reader has three choices: give up reading, read the same sentence again, or read what comes next.

What would consume great semantic energy, E_SEM?

· Unknown words, acronyms, and abbreviations

· Absence of context to derive meaning

· Lack of prior knowledge to understand, or to aid understanding

· Lack of examples or visuals to make the concept clear

· Overly detailed or incomplete visuals

· Reader forgetful of content previously read

· Reader in disagreement with statement, method, or result

· Very abstract sentences (formulas)

· Sentences out of sync with reader expectations

What would consume little semantic energy, E_SEM?

· Sentence with a well-established context

Total reading energy for a given sentence, E_T, is the sum of two elements: the syntactic energy, E_SYN, spent on analyzing its syntax, and the semantic energy, E_SEM, spent making sense of the just analyzed sentenced.

E_T = E_SYN + E_SEM

· Reader familiar with the topic or the idea

The songbird flew back to the nest to sit on three little eggs, two of its own, the third one from a cuckoo.

· Sentence that explains the previous sentence

Therefore if E_SYN becomes large, it will be at the expense of E_SEM. The more energy is spent to analyze the syntax of a sentence, the less energy will be left to understand the meaning of the sentence.

· Sentence that prepares the ground (through progression or setting of context)

Sub-clauses that pull reading forward often follow a predictable pattern; they start with a preposition such as “although,” “because,” “however,” or “if”.

· Short sentences (with known vocabulary)

It does not. The reader is surprised.

What would get the reader into trouble?

Energy shortages occur when E_SYN + E_SEM > E_Tmax

· E_SYN is unexpectedly large. As a result, what remains of E_SEM is insufficient to extract the complete meaning of the sentence.

· E_SYN is normal; but a new word, acronym, abbreviation, apparent contradiction, or concept requires additional brain effort (saturated memory, or failure to find associative link with known data). The reader runs out of E_SEM. The semantic energy gas tank is empty before the sentence is fully understood.

When this happens, the reader can make one of three choices: give up reading, read the same sentence again, or read what comes next, hoping to understand later.

Giving up reading is tragic. It is a consequence of repetitive and successive breakdowns in understanding. The text becomes increasingly obscure, and the reader finally gives up reading.

Reading the same sentence again happens if motivation is high. The reader is determined to understand because much understanding is expected from the difficult sentence. Rereading after mastering a difficult syntax consumes no syntactic energy because the sentence syntax is now familiar, and the reader spends all of his or her energy on understanding only.

E_SYN = 0, and therefore E_T = E_SEM.

The simile — reading as consuming brain energy — is in line with what Science observes. The brain hard at work consumes more energy.