In the Company of Microbes. Moselio Schaechter

      There isn’t any thought or idea that can’t be expressed in a fairly simple declarative sentence...

      – E.B. White, Fro-Joy

      Just when some people believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, here I am, ready to make a cheerful personal statement: “Scientific writing is improving!” Of course I base this on reading the microbiological literature, but assume that it’s generally true. What makes me say so? Well, more often than not, current research papers and reviews contain a fair share of simple declarative sentences. In my earlier days, typical statements were often in the passive form: “The effect of X on Y has been studied.” The first person form is now accepted, much to everyone’s relief. And titles of articles tend to be informative. Gone is Studies on the Metabolism of Escherichia coli: Part XIV. And, although I couldn’t swear to it, I believe that the language in graduate student papers has also improved. Nowadays, even humor is permissible. It has even permeated this blog, as exemplified by the wicked sense of humor of my co-blogger, Merry Youle, who has come up with titles such as The Bacterium That Doesn’t Know How to Tie Its Own Shoelaces, Coxiella Escapes from Cell, and A Holin One.

What has happened? Have scientists turned into Thurbers overnight? Good question. I would guess that changes in culture (sensu lato) are the big factor. We seem to be more factual in communication and less prone to circumlocutions and Victorian adornments of speech. So, this may well be part of a general development, but what about its roots? What caused these cultural changes? I am no wiser.

      This personal rapture was set off by perusing the 2010 issue of the Annual Review of Microbiology. It struck me that the articles I read were especially well written. I call as witnesses a few reviews by people I know. These include pieces by Kim Lewis (Persister Cells), Eric Rubin (and Michael C. Chao, Letting Sleeping dos Lie: Does Dormancy Play a Role in Tuberculosis?), and one by that master colorist of the microbial literature, Kevin Young (Bacterial Shape: Two-Dimensional Questions and Possibilities). Read and see for yourself.

       Editors’ Note: We received the following response from Michael Yarmolinsky.

       On the Quality of Scientific Writing

      by Michael Yarmolinsky

Truth and clarity are complementary *

      — Niels Bohr

      Elio, in a posting of September 16, 2010, comments on the improved quality of scientific writing (in the literature of microbiology). Simple declarative statements are found in greater abundance; the passive voice is no longer used to avoid the first person; the titles of articles are more likely to come to the point and unlikely to be part of a numbered series; and humor is permitted. An examination of the implications and possible causes of the “changes in culture (sensu lato)” that Elio views with approval may interest, and perhaps surprise, the readers of this blog.

      With respect to the declining use of the passive voice, one cause should be obvious. It is the insistent attention bestowed on sentences in the passive voice by grammar and spell check programs. Do not let a misguided word processor intimidate you. The impersonal style in expository writing is entirely appropriate. Your processor may underline “bacteria were grown in LB,” but do not replace it with “I grew the bacteria in LB,”(Do indicate whether the recipe called for 5 g/l of NaCl or 10 g/l. It can make a difference.)

Elio cheerfully notes that titles have become more informative. The abruptness and magnitude of the change is astonishing. A shift in the style of titles, from the indicative (denoting the subject) to the declarative (asserting that something is so) was documented in 1990 by J L Rosner.¹ Of 2582 titles published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from 1960 to 1969, not one is a declarative title, but by 1980 25% were declarative and after 1986 the frequency had climbed to over 45%(2).

      Yes, titles are more informative. But what about the reliability of the information provided? Therein lies the rub. Rosner entitled his article: Reflections of Science as a Product. As the title suggests, he saw the striking historical trend to reflect arrogance and even the loss of a guiding vision of science.

      A tendency to view the science of biology as a product rather than a process has been bemoaned by various authors, most passionately by Carl R. Woese in an important essay: A New Biology for a New Century (2004) (3). Both Rosner and Woese place considerable blame on Jim Watson and his disciples, for whom science would seem to be necessarily goal-oriented. This belief appears to have taken hold because goal-oriented science has been extravagantly successful.

      The issues raised by Rosner’s article have been revisited more recently in medical journals, e.g., by Neville Goodman (2000) (4) and Jeff Aronson (2009) (5). Goodman noted an exponential increase in active verbs in the titles of clinical trial reports. He undertook a review of 24 reports of clinical interventions published in 1996 with “prevents” in their titles. In at least eight of these cases, the intervention had not been preventive at all. What makes this frightening is evidence, cited by Goodman, that physicians sometimes make clinical decisions from the titles of journal articles. I suspect that authors of reviews in which the bibliography runs to many hundreds of items occasionally take similar shortcuts. Goodman concludes: “There may be arguments for reviews and editorials carrying informative [in the

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