Читать книгу Writing Scientific English - Timothy Skern - Страница 47

Remember too that even experienced writers are not perfect and can sometimes forget their own principles. Even a writer as experienced as an editor of “Nature” can mislay his principle of writing for an international readership. The text entitled “A word in your ear” (Campbell, 1998) provides an ironic example. The editor's text was aimed at encouraging established scientists to take more care in their conference presentations. The editor stressed the importance of the “clear transmission of ideas”, an admirable initiative. Sadly, though, the editor did not pay attention to his own suggestions. The vocabulary contains some uncommon words (see box 2.4) and most of the sentences are too long. For instance, look at all those complex negative sentences at the end of paragraph 3 and the beginning of paragraph 4. The one at the end of paragraph 3, in a modified form, is used as an illustration in section 2.1.5. Are there other sentences which you found difficult to comprehend? How would you improve their clarity?

In short, everyone can have an off-day. The goal is to make such off-days as rare as possible. Constant practice in applying the guidelines and suggestions from chapters 1 and 2 is the best way of achieving this goal.