Writing for Botany

Chapter 2 - What is Effective Writing?

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.
Matthew Arnold

Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.
C.W. Ceram

A clear statement is the strongest argument.
English proverb

A man of true science . . . uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science . . . thinks that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
Herman Melville

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.
John Updike

The missing element in much of scientific literature is the unwillingness of authors to accept as an essential part of their self-imposed task that they should actively seek to persuade potential readers of the interest of what they have to say. A description of the reasons why a piece of research was undertaken and an assessment of its importance . . . are obvious ingredients of a persuasive article.
John Maddox, Editor, Nature

I think best with a pencil in my hand.
Anne Morrow Lindberg

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
Johann W. von Goethe

Many botanists equate effective writing with "correct" writing--that is, a kind of writing that follows a set of sacrosanct rules that they recall from their English Composition classes (e.g., "Never split an infinitive.").(1) Granted, some "rules" about writing are important; for example, you'll embarrass yourself if you do not match the tense of a verb with its subject (e.g., don't write that "We should measures the pH of the nutrient medium."). However, rules about grammar are only one tool for helping you write effectively. Good grammar--even perfect grammar--does not guarantee effective writing any more than a good umpire guarantees a good baseball game.

Merely memorizing rules about writing will not make you an effective writer or botanist. For example, consider the results of several studies of how writing "style" affects the readability and impact of a biology-related paper. In these studies, biologists were asked to read two essays, both of which used the same technical words and presented the same information in the same order. Both essays were also correct and followed all of the grammatical rules listed in books about writing; the essays differed only in their use of language. Despite these similarities, there were important differences in the essays. The first essay was more informative and easier to read because it used simple and familiar words, avoided inflated phrases, and used shorter, more forceful sentences. The second essay was harder to read because it contained big words, long sentences, and complex constructions.

These differences in writing style strongly affect biologists: almost 70% of the 1,580 biologists who read the essays judged the first essay to be more interesting, stimulating, credible, and impressive than the second essay. Readers also judged the author of the first essay to be more intelligent than the author of the second essay. Moreover, when asked to judge the writers' competence--specifically, which biologist seemed to have a better organized mind--almost 80% chose the author of the first essay. The message here is clear: although both essays were correct, only the first essay was effective (Bardell, 1978; Turk, 1978; Turk and Kirkman, 1989; Wales, 1979; also see discussion in Moore, 1994).

The Impact of "Style" in Scientific Writing:
A Case Study

Watson, J.D. and F.H.C. Crick. 1953. Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171: 737-738.
This paper--the paper that Stent (1980) says gave birth to molecular biology--sketched the double-helical structure that Watson and Crick had deduced for DNA. The paper had a tremendous and immediate impact, not only because it was accurate, but also because it was written effectively.(2) Indeed, Watson and Crick's paper has become a model of scientific rhetoric (Halloran, 1984).

Avery, O.T., C.M. MacLeod, and M. McCarty. 1944. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types. Journal of Experimental Medicine 79: 137-158.
This was the first published demonstration that DNA is the hereditary material. Avery et al. studied Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium common in people having pneumonia. Avery et al. extracted DNA from a virulent strain of the bacterium and mixed it with cells of a less virulent strain. When the DNA-treated bacteria were grown into colonies, some of the bacteria had characteristics of the virulent strain. That is, these bacteria had been transformed. Avery et al. showed that the substance that caused the transformation was "a deoxyribose-containing nucleic acid."

The paper by Avery et al. was important because it overturned a widespread assumption and paved the way for Watson and Crick's subsequent paper about DNA. Yet, despite the paper's novel conclusions and technical strength, it was not widely appreciated or accepted (e.g., Darnell, Lodish, and Baltimore, 1990; Freifelder and Malacinski 1993). Indeed, some biologists claimed that the discovery by Avery et al. that DNA is the genetic substance, like Mendel's discovery of the gene in 1865, was "premature" (Stent, 1972). As you'll see in the following exercise, this perception and the paper's lack of immediate impact was due largely to its writing style.

Go the library and read the papers by Avery et al. and Watson and Crick. The differences in these papers are profound (Halloran 1984; Moore 1994).

Confidence of the Authors Avery et al. were hesitant to make conclusions. Watson and Crick were extremely confident.

Length Avery et al. were verbose; their paper was about 7,500 words long. Watson and Crick's paper was much more concise; it was only about 900 words long.(3)

Organization Avery et al. did not state their thesis in their opening paragraph, and did not mention DNA until about halfway through their paper. Watson and Crick state their thesis in the opening sentence of their paper.

Claims of Importance Avery et al. make no claims that their work is important. Rather, they introduce the paper as merely a "more detailed analysis" of an already well-known phenomenon (i.e., transformation). Watson and Crick boldly claim that their work is important. As Watson wrote to a colleague one month before publicly announcing the structure of DNA, "It is a strange model and embodies several unusual features. However, since DNA is an unusual substance, we are not hesitant in being bold."

Writing Style Avery et al. use an abstract, impersonal style of writing that includes much passive voice; they even refer to themselves with the abstraction "the writers." Watson and Crick used first person and active voice to enhance the impact of their paper and to claim the work and model as their own. Similarly, the dull presentation of Avery et al. is based on the belief that "facts" and data can speak for themselves. Watson and Crick reject this notion, and consistently show that meaning is created by human activities (e.g., We wish to suggest . . . , We wish to put forward . . . , We have postulated . . . ).

Remember: the impact of what you write will depend largely on how you write it. How, then, can you best express what you have to say?

This book will help you write effectively about botany and, in the process, learn about botany. In doing so, it will not concentrate on self-evident rules and clichés, but rather on using writing as a useful and effective tool for learning and communicating. By understanding this process of writing, you can anticipate problems and determine not only what is "wrong" with your writing, but what choices to make to improve your writing and enhance your learning. This approach differs significantly from those based on memorizing simplistic rules and truisms, such as "Never split an infinitive." After all, the best criterion for judging good writing is clarity of communication. If the meaning of a word or sentence isn't clear, it is written poorly, whether it follows a rule or not.

In the upcoming chapters, you'll learn how to discover and express your ideas. Then you'll see how to use paper and pencil (or computer keyboard and screen) to think through your ideas, with each sentence suggesting yet others. By writing about botany, you'll better understand and learn what you're studying.

Exercises

Go to the library and read about the role of salicylic acid in plant defenses. Then write a short essay about what you've learned. For a start toward collecting information about this topic, see Delaney, et al. 1994. A central role of salicylic acid in plant disease resistance. Science 266: 1247-1250.







4. Many famous botanists such as Barbara McClintock have described their studies of plants by ascribing human characteristics to plants (e.g., Charles Darwin wrote that a tree "tried to raise its head . . . and . . . failed"). This type of writing is called anthropomorphic writing. However, most scientists reject anthropomorphic writing. Why do you think that great botanists such as Darwin, McClintock, and others used it to describe their work? Do you think that anthropomorphic writing is effective or ineffective? Why?







5. Discuss, support, or refute the ideas in these quotations:

They're too close to the trees to see the forest. People in California or New York understand that Alaska is not so big. They live in places where the wilderness once seemed limitless, but they know it disappears.--Edgar Wayburn

Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence [sic] to religions principles.-James D. Watson

One hundred trout are needed to support one man for a year. The trout, in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, that must consume 27 million grasshoppers that live off of 1,000 tons of grass.
--G. Tyler Miller, Jr.

The secret of science is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world.--Sir Henry Tizard

2 This paper, which was the basis for Watson and Crick winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1962, reports no experimental data. Rather, Watson and Crick relied on data provided by others to offer a theoretically sound solution to an interpretive problem.

3 Other great biologists have used concise writing to enhance the impact of their writing. For example, Arthur Kornberg, who produced the first good evidence that the helics of DNA run in opposite directions, described the enzymatic synthesis of DNA with only 430 words. Cournand and Ranges described the first catheterization of a human heart with only 950 words, and Fritz Lipmann described coenzyme A with only 250 words and a table (Schwager, 1991). For comparison, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's directive for pricing cabbage contains 15,629 words (see discussion in Moore 1992).