Transcript History of Persuasion

History of Persuasion
Contemporary Science
A science article:
obviously truthful?
The aim of the study was to investigate the correlation between
myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition, lactate threshold (LT),
maximal oxygen uptake VO2max, and average muscle fiber
conduction velocity (MFCV) measured from surface
electromyographic (EMG) signals during cycling exercise. Ten
healthy male subjects participated in the study. MHC isoforms
were identified from a sample of the vastus lateralis muscle and
characterized as type I, IIA, and IIX. The saturation values of
the diffuse electric layer potential φ0 60 mV for the Rh1.2 and
φ0 94 mV for the Rh0.69 common films confirm the ionic
character of the rhamnolipids. Experiments with model lung
surfactant (Infasurf) foam films with rhamnolipid added outline a
perspective for the potential application of the foam film for
investigating the effect of rhamnolipids on human alveoli.
An advertisement:
obviously persuasive?
This daily moisturizing formula,
infused with concentrated Retinol,
helps accelerate surface cell turnover,
pushing new, younger cells to the
surface. Meanwhile, Hyaluronic Acid
replenishes skin with line-plumping
moisture, as patented Helioplexstabilized sunscreen technology
provides superior anti-aging
protection.
In fact my science article was composed of two
articles lumped together:
The aim of the study was to investigate the correlation between
myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition, lactate threshold (LT),
maximal oxygen uptake VO2max, and average muscle fiber
conduction velocity (MFCV) measured from surface
electromyographic (EMG) signals during cycling exercise. Ten
healthy male subjects participated in the study. MHC isoforms
were identified from a sample of the vastus lateralis muscle and
characterized as type I, IIA, and IIX. The saturation values of
the diffuse electric layer potential φ0 60 mV for the Rh1.2 and
φ0 94 mV for the Rh0.69 common films confirm the ionic
character of the rhamnolipids. Experiments with model lung
surfactant (Infasurf) foam films with rhamnolipid added outline a
perspective for the potential application of the foam film for
investigating the effect of rhamnolipids on human alveoli.
So…
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As readers, we tend to trust science
writing even when we have no idea
what it means
Other genres, including advertising,
which are less obviously trustworthy,
sometimes borrow features from
science writing precisely because of
that perceived trustworthiness
Doesn’t this mean that science is a
very effective form of rhetoric?
I am not attacking science…
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An important point to bear in mind is that
scientists do not believe each other just
because they write in an appropriate style
When an article appears in a respected
scientific journal, it will have gone
through an extensive process of ‘peer
review’
It is also taken for granted that after
publication the findings will be examined,
tested and possibly disputed
However, we should perhaps be careful
about statements such as:
There is a distinction between imaginative literature
(with which the idea of style is usually associated) and
functional writing. We are concerned in this Chapter
solely with effective style for the communication of
information; what is efficient for this context is what is
clearest and quickest. Elegance may or may not be a
by-product; but it can never be an intention. Style for
functional writing should be unobtrusive, an invisible
medium, like a window pane through which the
information can be clearly seen. Of course, lapses
from good taste, or unacceptable usage, can be
unfunctional, in that they disturb and distract the
reader. But equally distracting is any usage where the
motivation is display or ornamentation, rather than
clarity.
Christopher Turk and John Kirkman, Effective Writing,
(1991) p. 90
Some features
of the scientific style …
1. Structure:
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Introduction (Hypothesis)
Methods and Materials
Results
And
Discussion (Conclusion)
David Locke, Science as Writing, (1992) p. 8
[…] some scientists are now willing to admit that this
kind of artful presentation has a rhetorical effect, if not
a consciously rhetorical purpose. Thus, one recent
Nobel laureate, Sir Peter Medawar, remarks, “In
retrospect we tend to forget the errors [committed in
scientific research], so that ‘The Scientific Method’
appears very much more powerful than it really is,
particularly when it is presented to the public in the
terminology of breakthroughs, and to fellow scientists
with the studied hypocrisy expected of a contribution
to a learned journal” (emphasis added). It is this
“studied hypocrisy,” this selecting, shaping, organizing,
and arranging of the material to produce an effect –
even an effect of clarity and directness of presentation,
if not of “power” and infallibility – that certain scientists
have come to recognize as signalling the nature of the
scientific document.
2. Human agency obscured
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the routine use of the passive
rather than the active voice, e.g.
‘we took a test tube’ (active) is
replaced with ‘a test tube was
taken’ (passive)
the use of abstract nouns as the
subjects of active verbs.
the suppression of personal
pronouns
‘Predicting variability in biological control of a plant-pathogen system
using stochastic models’
Proceedings of the Royal Society B 1999, Series B, p. 1743
A stochastic model for the dynamics of plant-pathogen
interaction is developed and fitted to observations of the
fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani (Kühn) in radish
(Raphnus sativus L.), in both the presence and absence of
the antagonistic fungus Trichoderma viride (Pers ex
Gray). The model incorporates parameters for primary
and secondary infection mechanisms and for
characterizing the time-varying susceptibility of the host
population. A parameter likelihood is developed and used
to fit the model to data from microcosm experiments. It
is shown that the stochastic model accounts well for
observed variability among replicate epidemics in terms of
the underlying epidemiological parameters for primary
and secondary infection and decay in susceptibility.
3. Technical terminology / jargon
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specialist terms derived from Latin
or Greek
pathogen – ‘any agent which causes
disease’
stochastic – ‘random’  ‘random
process’
technical uses of more familiar
terms
decay – has a statistical meaning
4. Nominalization
Nominalization means nouns derived
from verbs: to find them, look for
the morpheme //tion//
 interact  interaction
 observe  observation
 infect  infection
 populate  population
5. Long noun phrases
In particular, extensive pre-and post
modification:
pre-modification
'plant-pathogen interaction',
'underlying epidemiological parameters'
post-modification
'parameters for primary and secondary
infection mechanisms and for
characterising the time-varying
susceptibility of the host population'
Why do we get so much nominalization
and such long noun phrases?
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the nominalizations turn dynamic
processes into fixed entities (interacts vs.
interaction)
big noun phrases enable 'new' material to
appear as 'given' material in the next
sentence, thus building up complicated
chains of new and given ideas
this style enables scientists to express
themselves concisely and at the same
time constructs a particular model of the
world
What are some the faults of science
writing thought to be?
1. Clusters of nouns, e.g. ‘leaf copper accumulation
observations’, ‘amino acid digestion analyses’
4. Nouns instead of the verbs from which they were
derived, e.g. ‘Weights of the animals were taken’
(instead of ‘we weighed the animals’)
6. Use of passive rather than active voice - ‘I believe
that the use of the first person and active voice
gives a refreshing sense of directness and
involvement and sometimes avoids the necessity
for some remarkable verbal gymnastics’.
10. Use of unfamiliar abbreviations, symbols and
references.
David Lindsay A Guide to Scientific Writing (1994)
32-35
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Isn’t it a bit of an odd contradiction if
the chief characteristics of science
writing are also held out to be its
main faults?
In fact, some characteristics are
slowly changing, e.g. use of passive
voice
So why does Science writing
look like this?
Because it is functional:
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The key aim of writing up an experiment
is that the results described within it
should be replicable. Another scientist
should be able to read your article and
repeat your experiment exactly.
It doesn’t matter who does an
experiment, what matters is what was
done.
Modern science is highly complex and
highly specialised, and it is continually
building upon and developing earlier
findings.
Any other reasons?
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because the learning of science and the
learning of the scientific style are closely
interwoven
a difficult style helps to keep the nonspecialist out (a 'gate-keeping' function)
because everyone knows that this is what
science looks like …
… in other words, scientific language has
become ritualized
M.A.K. Halliday and J.R. Martin, Writing
Science (1993) p. 68
A newly evolving register is always functional in its
context (whether the context itself is one of consensus
or of conflict); the language may become ritualized,
but it cannot start that way, because to become
ritualized a feature must first acquire value, and it can
acquire value only by being functional. Thus despite
the extent to which scientific English comes to be
ritualized, and carried over as a language of prestige
and power into other contexts where its special
features make no sense except as ritual (for example
in bureaucratic discourse), all the characteristics […]
are in origin functional in the effective construction of
reality, whatever we may feel about the way they are
deployed today.
‘Ritualization’ means that …
… the authority of ‘the scientific style’
can be borrowed over into other
types of writing, where it is not
underpinned in the same way by
the scientific method and peer
review, e.g. advertising,
bureaucratic discourse,
management speak, etc.