Kiss That Freedom G'bye

[Tonington]

Books perhaps. But Journals?

Learning to write for scientific publications is part of any degree in science. That's why we have labs, and learn how to write formal reports. I've never heard of writers writing the articles instead of the researchers.

 

[Kreskin]

Books perhaps. But Journals?

Learning to write for scientific publications is part of any degree in science. That's why we have labs, and learn how to write formal reports. I've never heard of writers writing the articles instead of the researchers.

I know one personally who did all the research but hired a professional writer who had experience in medical writing to prepare the manuscript. There was no way on earth that writer even knew what she was talking about yet that's what they did.

 

[darkbeaver]

I know one personally who did all the research but hired a professional writer who had experience in medical writing to prepare the manuscript. There was no way on earth that writer even knew what she was talking about yet that's what they did.

You have a disfunction of logic, the scribe is a profession as old as the written word. The scribe records for the artists, scientist, philosopher, engineer but does not create the information only the text. How is it that you see a disconnect from the creative process when there is none?

Quoteing Kreskin "Most advanced science journals and books are written by experts in writing, not scientists. They are hired by the scientists"

They do not write anything, they transcribe what has been imparted to them by those who have employed them to serve as a copying machine, similar tasks are performed by translators and editors.

 

[Kreskin]

You have a disfunction of logic, the scribe is a profession as old as the written word. The scribe records for the artists, scientist, philosopher, engineer but does not create the information only the text. How is it that you see a disconnect from the creative process when there is none?

Quoteing Kreskin "Most advanced science journals and books are written by experts in writing, not scientists. They are hired by the scientists"

They do not write anything, they transcribe what has been imparted to them by those who have employed them to serve as a copying machine, similar tasks are performed by translators and editors.

Exactly Beave. They didn't create the information, only the communication. Not even a conspiracy theory. Pretty boring huh?

 

[Tonington]

I know one personally who did all the research but hired a professional writer who had experience in medical writing to prepare the manuscript. There was no way on earth that writer even knew what she was talking about yet that's what they did.

That doesn't mean most articles are submitted in that fashion. Frankly I don't know why anyone would do that. If the researcher is in the medical field, I don't see how or why they wouldn't have experience writing for scholarly journals.

 

[Kreskin]

That doesn't mean most articles are submitted in that fashion. Frankly I don't know why anyone would do that. If the researcher is in the medical field, I don't see how or why they wouldn't have experience writing for scholarly journals.

Not every scientist is a professional writing or an expert in dealing with the media. I know a couple who are weak at writing but great at research and knowledge. They leverage others to help convey their work.

 

[Tonington]

Well writing is part of the work. You don't need to be a professional writer to explain methods, results and discussion. In fact it's very dry writing. However, the writing process is immensely important. It's been drilled into me the past three years at my school. In fact the lab write-ups actually are different in format from course to course. Aquaculture journals prefer tables with no vertical lines, Chemistry journals use horizontally and vertically lined tables. These are all subtle differences that they have been beating into our heads since day one. That is, to recognize how to communicate your work with your peers.

Considering the referee system that is peer review, I really don't know what the purpose of having someone else write it out would be, unless the scientist is incompetent in typing skills, and I find that hard to believe. The instructions would have to be fairly explicit to the writer, and then the comments back from journal editors and referees would need to be sorted further.

I don't think it's as widespread as 'most articles'.

 

[Kreskin]

Well some are. I would also hazard a guess that most if not all articles that appear in magazines have gone through an editorial process. Even professional media reporters/writers are edited. Why would this be any different?

 

[Kreskin]

That article prompting this thread is one example of why anything you say to the media can be twisted out of proportion. It's not talking about peer to peer reviews it's talking about handling people who are professionally trained to twist something out of nothing. That's why PR departments exist.

 

[gerryh]

That article prompting this thread is one example of why anything you say to the media can be twisted out of proportion. It's not talking about peer to peer reviews it's talking about handling people who are professionally trained to twist something out of nothing. That's why PR departments exist.

exactley

 

[Tonington]

Well some are. I would also hazard a guess that most if not all articles that appear in magazines have gone through an editorial process. Even professional media reporters/writers are edited. Why would this be any different?

A magazine article is a different thing altogether. When a scientist writes an article for a magazine, they are free to editorialize, and then it is the prerogative of the magazine editors to approve.

When an article is written for a scholarly publication, it is subject to the rigors of science, ie. do the conclusions follow from the results, is the methodology correct, etc. If something doesn't look right, comments are sent back to the author. Then they adjust accordingly.

Politicians are not qualified to deem what is and what is not admissible.

This is the fundamental problem in bringing the findings of science to the public. Not all citizens have access to journals. Not all citizens can understand the difference between a good article and a bad article. Simply being published in Science, or Nature, or Geophysical Research Letters doesn't mean that the investigation is gold standard. The test of how good an article is, is how often it is cited, how the findings can be replicated with other valid methods of analysis.

Government censorship of science is wrong. The behaviour of a molecule is independent of political ideology, and scientists should be free to report their findings.

If all requests for information by the media are subject to approval from Ottawa, then we have a problem. They haven't told us who will be approving messages. They haven't told us what the qualifications are of this person or people. And they canceled the program we had where a science office advises politicians.

There shouldn't be any surprises to Baird anyways, unless there is a problem between the information moving from researchers to Department executives. And if that is the problem, this action is wrong, especially given what I've already said about the advising office being canceled. The remedy would not seem to address the true problem.

 

[Kreskin]

Paul, I see an article that starts off with a lie. No one is "muzzled". Do you think anyone is wearing a muzzle? That's what you get with the media, overstating just about anything to sell the news. If everyone collectively don't come forward with the same message then everyone gets skewed, scientist and all. When running a business and dealing with the media it is common sense to funnel media requests through to a pr department. It's for a reason, you collectively get into less trouble. It doesn't matter what the industry is. This is no different for government. I'm surprised this hasn't happened long before today. It probably has but the media got a hold of some fresh meat for publication.

 

[Tonington]

The assumption here is that scientists are giving conflicting messages. I don't think that's the problem at all. It's what the journalists do with those quotes that causes problems. Of course the Government can't dictate what a journalist says. That's not constitutional, and it would be met with a fury.

On the face of it, of course it is a good thing to have some consistency when discussing salient issues. But I don't trust a political entity to be fair and impartial in what kind of messages they approve. That is my beef.

Journalists will still find ways to twist words and mince them to fit the demographics of their target audience. How does the researcher then respond when they are taken out of context, from a message that had to be approved, when they have no freedom in the first place to speak in the frankest of terms?

 

[Kreskin]

The assumption here is that scientists are giving conflicting messages. I don't think that's the problem at all. It's what the journalists do with those quotes that causes problems. Of course the Government can't dictate what a journalist says. That's not constitutional, and it would be met with a fury.

On the face of it, of course it is a good thing to have some consistency when discussing salient issues. But I don't trust a political entity to be fair and impartial in what kind of messages they approve. That is my beef.

Journalists will still find ways to twist words and mince them to fit the demographics of their target audience. How does the researcher then respond when they are taken out of context, from a message that had to be approved, when they have no freedom in the first place to speak in the frankest of terms?

That would be the pupose of it. Have one clear message that is difficult to take out of context.