Nature columnist rants about declining literacy standards in science papers

C'mon, Henry. I think this expects a bit much from many working scientists. Science is hard work already. None of the candidates for Last Man Who Knew Everything lived within a century of us. Arguably, the erosion of liberal education has been a societal project for at least the last three decades, some would say the last three centuries. The question is: do you whinge, do something about it, or live with the new world order? Science does of course need good writing--after all, we had to import Bill Bryson over from Journalism to get last year's best book on the history of science.

Henry Gee writes how much his "A-level (high-school diploma) in English literature" has helped him. Thanks for providing the parenthetical translation from English to American there! So tell me, Henry, why didn't you translate "the same reason that dogs mark fire hydrants"? You didn't because there has been a shift in the mores of written English from England to America in recent decades. We've all seen more Far Side cartoons than read true classics so we know fire hydrants better than Martial epigrams. Apparently we don't know about disparate schooling systems.

The Americanization of English communication is--on balance, probably, hedging my bets--a really really good thing. There's less Latin; a shame. Less pedagogy of English grammar; ditto. But there's plenty more writing where one can refer to something as formerly obscure (to non-Americans) as a fire hydrant and be assured of reader comprehension, and also lot less writing where one confidently cites one's favoured dead Greeks fully aware that one's readers went to one's alma mater. This is a great leap forward!

Henry espouses the qualities of pre-Seventies science writing as represented by Nature papers of the time. He's right: they were better. But the changes in accessibility since then mean that language intended for communication must be international. Our education focusses on this, to the detriment of Latin and Greek and all that. The perceived loss of "quality" is therefore a side effect of the repurposing of writing over the last few decades, not the main effect of changes in educational approach. We threw out elitism but accidentally discarded compleatness. We aren't exposed to as much Shakespeare (whose picture decorates Henry's article) so our writing ain't so gud, but we do learn many more communication strategies now so our stories, performances, blogs and emails have an international immediacy and ease-of-use when in a non-formal setting that simply wasn't around in those halcyon days. It's changed, but whether that is for the better or not depends on a subjective assessment of the value of Latin et al. and not an objective assessment of whether ideas move faster now from head to head.

The current state of education is always bemoaned, always diagnosed by graduands of its earlier incarnations as being on its last elbows. The lack of universal liberal (small 'l') education is certainly a problem and one I believe we should fix but I'd be surprised if it is the reason why Nature papers are so badly written this century. Ideas in Nature papers stumble and lurch their way from one head to another thanks to relatively poorer writing for at least one other reason not given by Henry Gee. As a researcher, I wouldn't have dared (and nor would I have received support from any supervisor I have known) to submit a paper to Nature using language lacking in what is deemed appropriate gravitas. Many scientists can't write for toffee (they write for peanuts instead! [Joke (c) Martin Amis]) but their efforts would be merely bad if given free rein. Journals don't give, or until recently haven't given, free rein. If the journals want better writing, they can come out and encourage it. Maybe that's the real intent of Henry's column.

(So, Nature, how much do you want to pay me for the last five paragraphs? Pay more and I'll make 'em better.)