Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Mahrer, K. D. Search for Related Content

Bugged by bad writing? Help break the cycle

University of Denver, U.S.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Reviewer: I read your abstract and, frankly, it really didn't tell me anything about your manuscript. It has some real problems. When I removed the fluff but kept your original words, it distilled down to three simple sentences: A study was done. Results were found. Conclusions were drawn. It gave me nothing specific about the content of your manuscript.

Author: So? Do you have a problem with that?

R: (speechless with quizzical look)

A: That's the way abstracts read. Isn't that correct? Isn't that the way to write—mimic what's worked for others; use published works as examples? That's what my thesis advisor told me.

I wish I had a dime for every time I had that conversation. My pockets would jingle loudly.

Have you ever wondered why so many technical articles talk a lot but say little? Why so many are simply chronologies, or de facto diaries, of what the authors did and seem to ignore what you, the reader, need? Why so many lack purpose (beyond fulfilling the author's professional requirement or personal need to publish)? Or, why so many are solutions looking for problems, i.e., they describe (often prodigious) effort but fail to espouse value or utility. Ever wondered why people write like this? Well, I have, and here are some possibilities. It might be genetic. Maybe there's a poor-writing gene? An interesting idea, but not too likely. Maybe it's a poor-writing bug or, in the cant, a viral or bacteriological agent. That's a cute idea. It certainly could explain a lot: Why it's so pervasive (pandemic?) and why it continues to propagate through the literature (contagious?). Yes, I rather like the concept of the poor-writing bug. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no such beastie has yet been found.

So what's the . . . [Full Text of this Article]