The increasing use of hyperbole in scientific literature is undermining effective scientific communication.
All scientific writing courses emphasize that the manuscript must tell a story. But why is that so? After all, scientific discoveries are still true regardless of the final text. Discoveries are made in the laboratory, but the scientific method is more than skillful handling of equipment and conducting well-designed experiments. The core of the scientific method, formalized in the 17th century, is reporting discoveries so that others can repeat them. Only then do they become part of human knowledge, that is, literature.
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All important knowledge in human history has been passed down through stories (oral or written). As Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, said:One: “The most important thing for me is that the story conveys emotions. “They appeal to what we share as human beings across borders and divisions.” We argue that scientific papers should also convey emotion. And what better topic to cross borders and divisions than science! Papers are a pleasure to read when the reader can feel a sense of wonder at the science presented, when the beauty of nature, the simplicity of an idea, or the elegance of an experiment become self-evident.
Communicating emotions doesn't mean talking about what you've been working on all day, or how you felt while purifying a difficult sample, or during a particularly productive day in the lab. In the past, rich descriptions of such situations were common — consider, for example. Gilbert Stokes reported in 1852 how he discovered isomorphic shifts in the fluorescence of quinine solutions.2. In his 100-page paper, he expressed his frustration: “There is not enough sunlight. [not an abundant commodity in Cambridge, England] It proved so intrusive in the conduct of these studies that I was induced to try bright flames to obtain a convenient substitute.”
These days, papers need to be concise and to the point clearly. Conveying emotion means letting the reader experience the moment of epiphany the author felt when everything suddenly made sense, taking the reader by the hand and taking them to a newly discovered land. In science, this is typically done by interconnecting data, pictures, and models in a logical way. Atoms, photons, vibrational states and quasiparticles are the characters. In different types of literature, writers use different tools to create images in the reader's brain, such as metaphors in poetry. However, like any other literature, the idea is to create a convincing and attractive picture in the reader's mind, who will then be able to follow the inferences and explanations (the 'show, don't tell' predicate).
Exaggerated statements like “This work represents a breakthrough/paradigm shift/groundbreaking/unprecedented result, opens up new avenues of investigation, is the Holy Grail” kills the pleasure of reading because it undermines the overall plot.three. They do nothing to build a mental image and instead indiscriminately force the writer's opinions on the reader. Such expressions already create anxiety in the reader. Unfortunately, research shows that overrepresentation per published paper has doubled over the past 50 years, especially in the hard sciences. Perhaps this is because academic discoveries in these fields tend to lack immediate practical application.4,5. If authors feel tempted to add these statements, they should ask themselves whether there is a better quantitative argument they could make instead. This will result in more persuasive prose.
As editors, we strive to provide our readers with the best scientific research we receive. When the manuscript tries too hard to persuade us, we feel nauseous. Rather, a good paper brings us joy. Believe it or not, we can get excited about science when we read a manuscript. The same goes for readers. We get excited when we come across these types of manuscripts. We want to tell our readers all about it. That's when we know we have a story to tell in our manuscript, a story that has the potential to spark the reader's imagination and provide inspiration. To paraphrase the editor-in-chief: natureMagdalena Skipper, we want our papers to be read like turning the pages of a book.6. Ultimately, it is literature.