Interlude: Updating Editions, Research Presentations, and AI Assumptions
InI recently started reading the book Getting to Yes. I wondered if learning more about the art of negotiation might give me some new insight on persuasive grant writing to get a “Yes” from reviewers.
In the introduction, the authors talked about how they changed a certain word in the updated edition. They shared how they found that readers were interpreting the original word in the first edition in a way they did not intend. Then the authors shared what their intention was when they wrote the original edition and clarified where they made changes in the updated book.
If you've been around here for a while, you know that my philosophy is to choose words carefully and write with intention. So I admire the authors for choosing a more accurate word to clarify the meaning they intended and then editing the updated edition accordingly.
I think this idea of updating the text is important to consider in scientific and medical writing. We often don't have the ability to update a document once it's been published, at least not without a formal correction or retraction that is often judged negatively. So we need to choose our words carefully before a document is published, or even submitted.
But whether you're updating an edition or revising before submission, the important thing to consider is that you need to choose the best words to convey your intended meaning.
Now onto this week's round-up...
💌 Round-up
💻 From My Desk
10 Things to Stop Saying in Your Research Presentation
When giving a presentation, you need great content, a stellar slide deck, and to keep your audience interested and engaged. In this video, you'll discover 10 common phrases to avoid saying during your presentations and simple strategies for navigating tech mishaps, mastering transitions, and handling unexpected issues with poise.
👓 Reading
The big assumption behind loud opposition to “AI” writing tools – and its two flavours
"I think there’s a simple but very large assumption behind much of it. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to see the assumption; other times it’s stated plainly. It’s this: folks assume that when someone uses an LLM, they’re using it to avoid thinking about the writing they’re doing – rather than using it to help them think about that writing. . . I’ve realized that this assumption comes in two flavours, and it’s worth distinguishing them. There’s what I’ll call a naïve version and a sophisticated version. To be clear, I think that neither version holds; but they fail to hold in different ways."
Research on retractions: A systematic review and research agenda
"Vast majority of the scholarship on retractions involves quantitative overviews, often relying on basic descriptive statistical analyses of retraction trends and patterns. Results clearly demonstrate sensitivities and stigma around retractions mean that there have been very few published qualitative studies, and little attention to the perspectives and experiences of the retracted scholars themselves. Almost no papers have explored the links between the career pressures placed on researchers, the commercial focus of many academic publishers, and the role of ‘paper mills’ in facilitating authorship in indexed journals."
The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly
"Collectively, these findings show that the integrity of the extant scientific record and of future science is being undermined through the shortcomings in the very systems through which scientists infer the trustworthiness of each other’s work. . . We need to create a system that is more robust and systematic and where it is harder to dismiss or bully those providing evidence of fraud."
💬 Quote
“When you truly understand something, you can express it at any level of detail while maintaining coherence. The master can provide the one-sentence version, the paragraph version, and the chapter version, all of which tell the same story at different resolutions. The novice can only repeat what they've memorized at one resolution.” – Shane Parrish
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
