Interlude: Shiny Writing, Hedging Patterns, and Retraction Afterlife
I was recently scrolling on Instagram for my daily fix of dog videos when a post from Brené Brown caught my attention. She was sharing what she learned after being fired from a cleaning job:
“Shiny can never replace mastery. You can make something really shiny, but sometimes shiny is really dangerous. And shiny often hides a lack of knowing what you’re actually doing.”
Her lesson made me think about scientific and medical writing. I’ve talked with many authors who think they need to make their writing “shiny” with jargon, long words, and complex phrasing. It’s understandable. Academic culture often seems to reward this type of writing and give the impression that it shows sophistication and expertise.
But shiny writing can backfire. It can lead to miscommunication that hinders understanding, causes readers to misinterpret findings, or even risks patient safety.
Now, I do want clarify that shiny writing isn’t always dangerous. Polished writing can be clear and persuasive. But polish comes from skill. Just like you need to know which products are best for certain cleaning tasks (like not using furniture polish on wood floors), you need to know which principles are best for certain writing goals. And this comes down to mastery.
So today, I encourage you to take one small step toward mastery in your writing. You might look up the definition of a word so you can use it correctly next time, or join a course like Scientific Writing Simplified to build your writing skills more deeply. Whatever you choose, every step counts.
Now onto this week's round-up...
Round-up
Reading
Does scientific writing converge to U.S. english? evidence from generative AI-assisted publications
”We find that GenAI-assisted publications from non-English-speaking countries exhibit statistically significant and increasing convergence toward U.S. scientific English, relative to non-GenAI-assisted publications from these countries. This effect is strongest for domestic author teams from countries more linguistically distant from English. The results suggest that GenAI tools are reducing language-related barriers in scientific publications, but whether this formal convergence alters underlying research quality, originality, or the trajectory of scientific discovery remains an open question.”
Authenticity of scientific literature: analyzing the usage of hedging in adapted scientific literature
”Our results show that ASL [adapted scientific literature] retains the typical distributional pattern of hedging - particularly its increased frequency in the introduction and discussion sections - but the overall proportion of hedging expressions is reduced compared to the original texts. In contrast, textbook texts contain very little hedging and present scientific knowledge as more certain.”
Why retracted articles can have an influential afterlife—and what to do about it
”Given that this ongoing influence compounds the harms of these publications, we recommend changes in how publishers manage article retractions. These changes include ensuring that article retraction notices are maintained when journal publishing agreements change, increasing the visibility of retractions, and notifying scholars and members of the public when an article they reference is retracted. While these changes will make article retractions more effective, there is a continued need to limit the publication of studies that violate the requirements of research integrity.”
Watching
Don't Let AI Write for You
"The future will belong to people who aren't AI, who are still human and unique and create something that appeals to us because we remain emotional animals that wanna be moved by something. And AI can't do that. AI writing is interesting, but it's soulless."
Quote
“Doing is a catalyst for thinking and learning.” – Adam Grant
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
