The Wacky World of
Writing:
Science and Literature
If you’re like most creators of prose and poetry, the world of
scientific writing is as foreign as the planet Jupiter. Is it
useful for a writer of literature to be acquainted with the
development of scientific literature? Are there any similarities
between these seemingly disparate creations?
I would be the first to
admit that there are many differences between scientific and
literary writing. I’ve been fascinated by the science of life
since the days of my youth growing up on a National Wildlife
Refuge in South Dakota. For the last six years I’ve been a
research scientist in the fields of ecology, toxicology, and
entomology. I began the long and tortuous (or torturous for
some) road of writing my first novel eight and a half years ago.
I can empathize with all the aspiring writers out there who
struggle each day to find time to write in between their
full-time jobs and a myriad of other responsibilities. My second
novel, The War That Never Was, will be released by
American Book Publishing in the summer of 2003. (By the way, it
has nothing at all to do with science.) All this has led me to
believe that persistence may be the most valuable asset for
successful writers in either the realm of literature or science.
Gaining experience in both scientific and literary writing has
worked to my advantage by giving me a broader perspective and
adding arrows of opportunity to my literary quiver.
What exactly is
scientific writing (not to be confused with writing science
fiction)? Before we delve into the nature of scientific writing,
let’s briefly discuss the impetus for creating the scientific
manuscript. Research is the horse that pulls the
scientific manuscript cart. Research and the scientific
manuscript are built upon the cornerstone known as the scientific
method. What is the scientific method? Nearly all of us were
introduced to this concept in middle school biology, but like
most things from that bygone era, we may need to dust off the ol’
memory cells to recall it. The foundation of the scientific
method is laid on two key words: observation and hypothesis (not
to be confused with the term from geometry describing the longest
side of a right triangle). Stay with me now, I’m not going to turn this into
a Biology 101 lecture.
The first step is
something we all do each and every day--make observations. It’s
the substance of everyday life on planet Earth. We observe the
sun rising over the horizon (if we wake up at the sound of the
rooster), we observe water dripping from a faucet (if we can’t
afford a plumber), we observe the mold that mysteriously appeared
on our two week-old loaf of bread…
I think you get the idea. Isn’t this also what good writers of
literature do? A great deal of the beauty of life goes unnoticed
by the casual observer. The best descriptive writers are
successful in part because of their refined powers of
observation. They can relate a scene or action with precision
and detail, because they have studied it (or a cousin) in real
life. Well-developed observation skills are vital to literary
writers who want to breathe life into characters composed of
letters on a page.
The next three things have to do with the big “H”
word. First we create a hypothesis, which is really an educated
guess as to why
some phenomenon or activity is happening. This is the same
reason the ancient Greeks and Romans had so many gods and
goddesses--to explain why a natural phenomenon occurred.
Allow me to use a
familiar example with a slight twist. Imagine for a moment that
we have solved one of the most perplexing questions of all time:
why did the chicken (rooster in our case) cross the road? You
are on a team of highly trained scientists who have made
countless observations and formed a hypothesis: The rooster is
crossing the road because there is a hen waiting for him on the
other side. Then you make a prediction: If I remove the
hen from the other side of the road, the rooster will not cross.
Finally you test the hypothesis by actually removing the hen and
voilá--the rooster does not cross the road. Further
studies could be conducted to determine what happens if the hen
is not removed. And on and on the studies go until you become a
world-renowned expert in poultry procreation. This is how
scientific careers are started, my friends.
Just as a novel has
important elements such as plot, setting, characterization, point
of view, tone, and theme, so also a scientific manuscript has
essential components. Think of these as a seven-course meal for
the ravenous scientist.
Abstract (also called a Summary):
The abstract is a condensed version of the entire manuscript.
Highlights from the introduction (the what and why), materials
and methods (how), results (product of the study), and the
discussion (analysis, interpretation, and significance of the
results) are included in this section. In some sense this is the
equivalent of the back cover or inside
flap of a novel. This is where people start reading and
will continue if they are convinced it is worth their time and
effort to investigate further.
Introduction: This
section provides the background and rationale for the study. It
is often chock full of other scientific references that provide a
backbone for the body of the study and brings the reader up to
date in a specific pertinent scope of research. This is analogous to
the opening chapters of a novel that give the reader the
appropriate setting, background, and introduction of characters
for the rest of the story.
Materials and Methods (otherwise known as
Methods): These are the specific
details of the study that are supposed to be precise and
descriptive enough to make it possible for another scientist to
repeat the study. This section can read like a cookbook recipe
and also provides an opportunity for the scientist to justify his
or her experimental design. The closest relative to this in the world of
fiction may be a novel writer’s outline or notes describing the
mechanics involved in creating a potential manuscript.
Results: This is the
meat of the study. Occasionally a manuscript is accepted for
publication in which there are no significant differences among treatments;
however, generally differences and not similarities among
treatments are the focus of this section. The same goes for
literary writing; editors and readers are not looking for routine
information or effect. Both scientific and literary editors want
something unique, even if it’s the same story told in a different
way (see below). In addition to a verbal or numerical
description of the study’s results, visual aids including tables
and graphs also complement this section. Pictures commonly found
in books for children have the same effect (no, I am not
suggesting that scientists are children). On one hand, “a
picture is worth a thousand words.” On the other hand, pictures
are often avoided in adult literature because they may take away
the free license of creative imagination exercised by many
readers. In other words, the abstract is crushed by the concrete
(ouch!). In scientific writing the applicable saying is, “Don’t
use tables and graphs as a crutch.” You still have to describe
the results to readers with words in the results section.
Strange as it may seem to the average writer of literature, some
scientists dislike English composition as much as some literary
writers hate mathematics (or pick your poison).
Discussion: This section
can be fun or frustrating for both
authors and readers. Creative explanations of unexpected results
can be included in this section, but watch out for “by the book”
editors who will demand that you support your conclusions with
hard and fast data. Doesn’t this remind you of novel and short
story editors who are continually demanding you make sacrifices
to the credibility god? Although writers of literature can
accomplish this through changes in plot or sentence structure,
scientists must reference the results of similar studies to
support their conclusions. Some scientific journals allow the
results and discussion sections to be merged into one section
(similar to merging two chapters in a novel). Others have a
conclusion section that can be a replacement for or in
addition to the discussion section. The conclusion for a novel
writer typically involves the resolution of conflict. The author
often reveals the significance of character development at the
end of the story much as a scientist describes the significance
of his or her results.
Acknowledgments: This is
typically the least-read section of any scientific paper. For
the authors, however, this can be a vital element that
contributes greatly to the pacification of their colleagues.
No doubt this is true for the same
section in works of literature. The real question here is when
does a scientific contributor become an additional author and
when is he or she relegated to the confines of the
Acknowledgments (aka “the deserted island”) section. It would
take a better man than I am to answer this age-old question of
scientific writing. My guess is if the study was your
brainchild, if it was conducted using your laboratory space
or money, or if you were a junior committee member desperate for
publications to obtain tenure, your name is perched above the
great abstract pedestal and crowned with the grandiose title of
the publication. The major workhorse of the study who conducted
the lion’s share of menial data collecting does not always earn a
spot on the high rung next to the other authors, but will nearly
always be included in the acknowledgements. This issue has no
doubt created considerable strife and disunity among the
institutional hoi polloi and the scientific aristocracy. In
reality, the chief blue- collar scientist for the paper is often
synonymous with one of the three previously mentioned author
categories. The Acknowledgements section is also the appropriate
place to thank the donor or granting agency for funding the
research project. Just like some in-house scientific editors,
literary editors are often included in the acknowledgements
section of works of fiction.
References Cited (also known as the Bibliography):
This is the list of authors’ names, manuscript titles, and
journals that were included throughout the manuscript. For the
reader, it serves as a good source of information related to the
particular study.
Many of you who are reading this article feel
quite distant to this beast they call scientific writing. You
may find it difficult to imagine, but there are even more similarities between writing
science and literature. But first, let’s delve into a few
of the things that separate these two disciplines.
At long last, let
me define in a limited sense what I mean by literature. For the
purposes of this article, literature includes stories (short,
long, and everything in between), essays, and poetry. The
primary purpose of scientific writing is to provide information.
Although non-fiction is an obvious exception, I will go out on a
short limb and state that most literary writing is concerned with
evoking a particular emotion. The almost complete lack of
emotion in scientific writing creates the characteristic dryness
that bores even the hard-core scientist at times.
One of the classic rules that every student of
writing hears is “show don’t tell.” While this may be true for
the literary world, scientific writing is more commonly based on
a “tell oriented” approach. Dialogue is one of the tools used in
literature that can be used to “show”, but is altogether foreign
to the scientific writer. A degree of show is attained in
scientific writing through media such as tables, graphs,
diagrams, and infrequently, pictures. These forms of show,
however, are primarily used as a means of summarizing large
quantities of information.
Another monumental difference between literary and
scientific writing is the payout. Admittedly not all literary
works earn their creators a paycheck, but many authors are thrown
at least a nickel or dime here and there by the agency profiting
from their work. Scientific writers, on the other hand, do not
earn a dime for their contributions to scientific journals. On
the contrary, most journals have page costs where authors are
charged (by the page) for their scientific endeavors. This money
goes to support the publication staff, in addition to the revenue
they acquire through journal subscriptions. This is all
conducted under the auspice that it is an honor for the scientist
to be published in a scientific journal and contributes greatly
to his or her academic career. (Don’t
get any crazy ideas, publishing executives.) This system is
fueled greatly by the “publish or perish” rally cry of
nearly all major research universities. I suppose one could
argue this type of reverse payout occurs to a limited extent in
the world of vanity publishing. There is an exception,
however, to this “it is better to give than to receive” notion of
paying for scientific writing: marquee scientists with
well-established careers who invest their time into writing a
textbook are rewarded (albeit minimally) for their efforts.
The position of the reviewer is another
distinction between literary and scientific writing. In
scientific writing, the review of the work occurs before and not
after the work is published, as it is with literary writing.
Reviewers of scientific manuscripts are usually independent
researchers in a related field who are asked by the editor of the
journal to perform this task. The rationale here is that these
reviewers have submitted manuscripts to the same journal in the
past and it is time for them to do their duty (much like jury
duty except that a negative verdict doesn’t send someone to
prison). Reviewers of scientific manuscripts have a similar
function as literary editors, although
scientific journals also have editors. The final decision to
accept or reject the manuscript lies in the hands of the
scientific editor, but it is based largely on the comments of the
scientific reviewers. The names of the reviewers are known by
the editors but are anonymous to the authors (for obvious
reasons). If only obtaining a book review were this easy!
Let’s shift our attention, for the time being,
to three more important similarities
between these seemingly divergent forms of writing. A
basic similarity can be condensed into one word, English (or
Chinese, Spanish, Kiswahili, Navajo,
and many others to avoid being ethnocentric). My point is that
fundamental rules of the language should not be violated by
either the scientific or literary writer. These rules include
obvious things relating to spelling, grammar, and syntax. There
are numerous examples of this, but in particular writing in the
passive should be avoided (oops!). This is a stringent
rule for both the scientist and the novelist.
We often think of scientific and literary writers
as living in two separate worlds separated by a crevasse as large
as that separating heaven and hell (I won’t chose sides). But
there are a few examples of great writers of both science and
literature. We could start with the ancient Greeks, Aristotle
and Plato, who were well versed in both science and literature.
An example of a renaissance man a little closer to home is the
great American patriot, Benjamin Franklin. In addition to being
an exemplary scientist and author, he was also a printer,
publisher, inventor, and diplomat (most of us would be happy with
two of the six). More recently, in the realm of great scientists
and poets, it would be proper to include Roald Hoffman, the 1981
Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry and author of multiple
collections of poetry, and Miroslav Holub, the immunologist who
has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in
Literature. Without much deliberation, you could no doubt come
up with numerous other individual examples of this confluence of
scientific and literary writing.
Although there are
undoubtedly other similarities between scientific and literary
writing, I choose to end with the greatest. Creativity is an
essential element in the spheres of both science and literature.
The act of writing, whether scientific or literary, is often
motivated by the challenge to create something new--a creation
that rises above the tide of the mundane. The ancient
sage, Solomon, who authored many books, had his own thoughts on
the matter (a thought shared by many editors),
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
