Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and is eagerly diving into 2009.
Sometime amidst the craziness of December, I received an email from another editors’ association that contained an interesting website: http://www.telescopictext.com/. Just continue clicking on the grey and the text will continue to expand.
In a way, this website shows a kind of “reverse editing”: making things more and more wordy and descriptive. I love descriptive words and wordy paragraphs, which is one of my greatest weaknesses as an editor. Especially as scientific editors, we’re called on to make texts succinct, easily understood, and straightforward. This often means cutting out words, combining statements, and making things less wordy and descriptive. I have edited for authors who love to use twelve words to modify one feature, making it definitely descriptive, but also definitely wordy.
My question for you then, is this: Does descriptive language ever have a place in scientific literature? And if so, to what extent? The geosciences can sometimes require the intricate description found in mineralogy or petrology — how can we, as earth science editors, maintain the clarity we strive towards while allowing authors to sometimes “wax eloquent” about rocks? Do you have any stories of instances in which you found it difficult to edit beautifully written descriptions or times when you were glad to have the opportunity to edit terribly long and unnecessary descriptions?
Nicole, I definitely know what you mean. There is a regular contributor to G&G (my journal) who never uses a single modifier when five will do as well. But, he is a good writer with a distinctive style, so I have to take care with my editing. I’ve found that the basic editorial question–which we all know, but sometimes forget to apply–”Is this word truly necessary?” serves me well in these circumstances.
There’s no question that engaging, descriptive writing has a place in scientific publishing–personally, I wish there was more of it–but it has to serve the overall purpose of communicating useful science to the reader. Authors who overly enjoy the sounds of their own voices are one of the reasons editors exist.