Why Do So Many in the Life Sciences Feel Document Language Has to Be Complicated to Be Good?
Not too long ago I was working on a client project related to improving the communication quality of clinical study protocols. At project initiation we did a document assessment of communication quality on six recently completed protocols. One of my consulting colleagues framed a very high-level assessment of the communication quality of these documents. Her assessment can be summarized as follows—it appears the authors of these protocols assume their reading audience will start reading the document in serial progression from page one to page n, have a high command of the English language, enjoy reading long, dense narrative passages, and have exquisite memories.
It appears the authors of these protocols assume their reading audience will start reading the document in serial progression from page one to page n, have a high command of the English language, enjoy reading long, dense narrative passages, and have exquisite memories.
In reality, the targeted reading audience for these documents—clinical study site investigators and managers, as well as members of Institutional Review Boards—clearly do not prefer to read documents structured in such a manner. Who would?
We took one of the protocols and restructured the document to optimize communication quality. We applied many of tenets espoused by the “plain language” movement that has received considerable traction within the many offices of the United States Federal Government. Here’s the link: http://www.plainlanguage.gov
The model protocol was reviewed by our client sponsor and she found the document to be “not scientific enough.” It looked too different than what she was used to. Of course, what she was used to was protocols containing long dense narratives, protocols making ineffectual assignment of agency to various parties participating in the conduct of clinical research; protocols that treat words like “should” and “must” as synonyms; and protocols that assume all users of the document have English as their mother tongue.
Why do so many authors in the life sciences remain firm believers in the notion that scientific discourse has to be complicated to be good? The arguments against plain language in scientific documents do not hold water—that plain language cannot be used with a clinical and technical reading audience, that plain language oversimplifies intentions and meaning, and that plain language is not precise. Check out this list of articles supporting the use of plain language on the plainlanguage.gov website.
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Comments
So to be scientific we must be confusing? So typical of technical writers! If it’s not complex, they think it can’t be any good. How wrong they are! Research shows that even technical people comprehend clear writing better–even without research, that should be obvious. And more importantly, clear writing works better. I’m sure we want these clinical study protocols to be effective. Well, if the users don’t understand them, they won’t be.
Certainly, writing these kinds of materials in plain language is “different.” And many people don’t deal well with change. But without change, we won’t do any better in the future than we’re doing now.
It is ironic that scientists resist clarity of thought when the foundation of Biology is structure. Kingdom, Phyllum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species–the hierarchy of life is sacrosanct in their discipline, yet they fail to see that structured writing has a similarly irrefutable role.
We get the same misguided argument in law: if it’s not written in legalese, it can’t be “legal” and certaintly can’t be accurate and precise. Nonsense. In fact, plain language tends to be more precise because it lays bare all the inconsistencies, ambiguities, and uncertainties that legalese tends to hide. As other comments have pointed out, there’s a pile of evidence to show that plain language is overwhelmingly preferred by readers, who understand it better and faster, find it more persuasive, make fewer mistakes, have fewer questions, etc., etc. And get this–in one study, readers concluded that plain-language writers are more intelligent than those who write in an inflated style. The notion that scientific discourse should be dense and highfalutin is wrong in so many ways.
We’ll never know how much useful science and technology has been buried by language too specialized to reach the wider population it needs for support. The scientific community needs to develop its ability to explain – to tell stories – in language common to us all. If we can’t understand the purpose of a scientific inquiry, or how it is conducted, or how it relates to everyday life, how can we know whether it needs our attention or our funding?
Whitney–thanks for the comments. yes are absolutely right that one of the issues we see is the use of long, complex sentences and the submergence of key messages within the noise of a lot of words. I have gone to the centerforplainlanguage blog you mentioned. Thnk you for that suggestion.
Yes in this domain, many do not deal well with the prospect of changing document design. I think in part it is a function of authors/contributing authors having low recognition of their audience. Often this myopic vision of audience is only partially their fault for they are embedded in work environments that do not work hard to cultivate awareness of audience and how audience uses/reacts to their documents. As my colleague Philips likes to say–”they confuse outcomes and impressions.” If they are authors/contributing authors believe a document to be “good enough” well for certain it must be good enough, no need to actively seek end-user feedback.
Well they genuinely believe they are applying effective prose and structure to their documents. This is the problem–impressions can be ever so misleading.
Joe–I suspect a major issue with reluctance to change writing approach for legal documents and scientific documents is that many identify such styles of language with professionalism and to suggest writing in some other manner is seen as an affront to their sense of professionalism. Others see complex/burdensome writing as a way to distinguish themselves…..that only a subset of the broader population is capable of understanding the discourse, thus placing themselves into an exclusive “virtual club.”
There is an interesting and ongoing debate over on the ISTC forum about the use of “plain” English in documentation. Organisations have done a lot of work highlighting bad examples of English usage. They also promote the use of simple language throug their training program. All good stuff. Except that I can’t help felling that “plain” English does not fit every scenario. It is to be admired where it can usefully make for effective communication but where it can’t, then we will have to fall back on some technical jargonised material. All within reason of course.
Colum–thanks for the reference to ISTC. For me the concept of “plain language” is very much context dependent and there is never a simple rubric to follow. Bottom-line is authors of technical documents have to know their audience and what that audience wants to “do” with a document. For me plain language means clear and precise language not simple language. The underlying concepts of plain language can be applied to every document.
I find these comments interesting and useful, but my sense is that the reasons for complicated language in scientific documents are more complicated than what we’ve touched on so far. I offer these:
1. The Myth of Objectivity
By definition there is an implicit (well, maybe it is explicit) expectation that science produces unbiased and objective knowledge. My teachers worked hard to help me understand that, above all, science is rational and logical. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), humans are not. But, we can make science appear to be more objective by taking humans out of the equation. There is a magic technique for doing called passive voice. If I tell you that ‘it was observed’ rather than telling you ‘I saw’ I transform myself from observer to reporter, and the observer becomes objective by standing outside the constraints that make humans subjective. What is it we call an all-seeing entity?
2. Disciplinary Discourse
The notion of a discipline (law, chemistry, biology, whatever) implies language that is used in special ways to accomplish certain sorts of things. Vocabulary, jargon/’terms of art’ are markers that I can use to help describe a discipline. When I specialize, part of my time (much of it actually) is spent learning the language of the specialty. This language is used to describe techniques, processes, practices, and to define valid areas and modes of inquiry. Once I acquire the hard-earned language of the specialty I become a member of an exclusive club. Members can know who is in and who is out by how they communicate. I mean, if it was easy, anyone could do it, and how better to reduce the playing field than by making it difficult?
3. Cloak for Safety
I find it hard to argue with something I don’t understand. Often my only option is to say ‘I don’t understand’. But when I do that, I run the risk of being called stupid, and I hate that… Maybe I just won’t say anything at all… And if I don’t (or can’t) say anything about their work, I’m not calling them stupid either. Everybody wins!
I see these three elements at play in many documents that have been used to train/form and reinforce the expectations of people at work. They become models, and as models they are emulated–not because they work particularly well at communicating ideas, but because they are acceptable. To suggest that they are unacceptable brings into question everything that has come before–it is world-changing. And change makes me uncomfortable (and I’m probably not alone in this).
I guess this means that to really improve scientific communication we will need to replace all the scientists with people. What do you think?
@ Dr. Annetta L. Cheek – I have been a Technical Writer for over 15 years. It is my experience that the average tech writer want to write in a simplified format. It is usually the management and other experts who insist on the long winded prose that read like a technical version of Moby
Dick. Please re-read the article. It says that during the planning stage it was decided that it would be written in a simple format. Then it was written in that format. The problem was introduced when someone reviewed the document and decided that it wasn’t scientific enough. That person was probably the subject matter expert (SME), someone with with too many degrees on the wall and not enough sense to know what the people really want.
What a tragic story. It’s not good enough to say, clearly and simply, what you intend to do in a clinical trial? No wonder people find health information so hard (and good health education materials are so hard to write).
Plain language does not mean that you can’t use scientific terminology. But there is no reason why those words have to be wrapped into long, dense, complicated sentences instead of speaking clearly.
In addition to the excellent plainlanguage.gov, may I suggest The Center for Plain Language (centerforplainlanguage.org), and our blog Plain Language Matters (http://centerforplainlanguage.wordpress.com/).
Perhaps one of the old templates are candidates for a WonderMark award (http://www.centerforplainlanguage.org/awards)