Lisa Grossman, reporter
(Image: xkcd.com)
One of the hardest things about communicating science is taking technical language and translating it into everyday English. Whenever this is discussed in a mixed group of scientists and communicators, there?s usually someone who argues passionately that cutting the jargon dilutes the science to the point where it means something different. Then the writers counter that it doesn?t matter if the language is less precise, as long as it gets the ideas across.
Into this fray comes the Up-Goer Five text editor, a widget created by geneticist Theo Sanderson, which restricts writers to the 1000 most commonly used words in the English language.
Sanderson was inspired by a brilliant xkcd comic that described a blueprint for the Saturn?V rocket - ?the only flying space car that?s taken anyone to another world? - using only those top 1000 words.
?I found it very funny and thought it would be interesting to try to describe my research like that,? Sanderson says. ?That?s easier if you have a program that tells you when you?re breaking the rules, so I made one.? The text editor lets you type into a box, and gently reprimands you when you?ve used an off-limits word.
To his surprise, the widget took off on Twitter, with people using it to explain everything from string theory to Shakespeare.
Geoscientists Chris Rowan and Anne Jefferson, who co-write a blog called Highly Allochthonous, set a challenge for their readers to explain their research using the ?ten hundred? allowed words. They got so many responses that they set up a blog to record them.
It has now had nearly 300 submissions, and Rowan says he?s read them all. "I think the purpose, if it has a purpose rather than just being fun, is it makes you think about how you explain things,? he says. Scientific jargon is mostly useful as shorthand for an abstract concept, he adds. Up-Goer-speak forces you to cut a concept down to its essence and reconstruct it.
A particularly good example is Darwinian evolution as explained by blogger Richard Carter:
?all the animals and green things we see in the world?have all been made by the same, fixed, easy steps acting all around us. These easy steps, taken in the largest sense, being growing and having babies; being like your parents (but not exactly like them); and being able to avoid dying for as long as possible.
?Once you break it down to its essence, you can say something profound,? Rowan says.
On the other hand, sometimes the restrictions get in the way. Several entries came from scientists studying Mars (and one was written as the Mars rover Curiosity describing itself), but the word ?Mars? is not on the list.
Their workarounds were clever, including ?red sky rock?, ?red world next door?, ?the number four rock that goes around the sun? - but they still need the reader to understand that there is another world next door, that you can see it in the sky, and that it?s red. But if you already need to have the concept of a planet in order to express your work, you might as well call it Mars.
?There is a reason why jargon is around: if you know the word, you can compress five sentences of meaning into one word,? Rowan says. ?It does give you an appreciation for why scientific papers are written the way they are, otherwise they?d be these huge novels.?
And sometimes breaking away from the approved list makes the description more evocative. Mars scientist Ryan Anderson posted his description of his work on his Martian Chronicles blog, but commented on Facebook:
I think it's actually easier to understand if I can use a few less common words: ?I study Mars. I use a robot that zaps rocks on Mars with a laser to tell what they are made of. I also look at pictures taken from orbit to try to see how its climate has changed.?
Ultimately, the Up-Goer word list is too restrictive for most of the writing I do, but it?s a useful exercise to see if I?m being more wordy than I need to be. Perhaps recognising this, Sanderson has now made an ?Up-Goer Six? editor that colour-codes words according to how often they?re used.
Can the Up-Goer scalpel be turned on science writing itself? My editor, Victoria Jaggard, gave it a go:
Sometimes really good words get people who do not think they like space cars to decide space cars are important and cool, and then they want to read more words about stuff like that.
Follow @CultureLabNS on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
new apple tv sun flare love hewitt new ipad solar flare joseph kony 2012 arian foster
No comments:
Post a Comment