The way I figure it, while I'm working on my dissertation, it's not a distraction to read good science writing. Indeed, it keeps me in good writing form.
That's why I'm leafing through Galileo's Commandment: 2,500 Years of Great Science Writing
I'm reminded how alienating technical writing can be in a tongue-in-cheek essay by John McPhree (from Basin and Range:)
Rock that stayed put was called autocthonous, and if it had moved it was allocthonous. "Normal" meant "at right angles." "Normal" also meant a fault with a depressed hanging wall. There was a Green River Basin in Wyoming that was not to be confused with the Green River Basin in Wyoming. One was topographical and was on Wyoming. The other was structural and was under Wyoming. The Great Basin, which is centered on Utah and Nevada, was not to be confused with the Basin and Range, which is centered in Utah and Nevada. ... To anyone with a smoothly functioning bifocal mind, there was no lack of clarity about Iowa n the Pennsylvanian, Missouri in the Mississippian, Nevada in Nebraskan, Indiana in Illinoian, Vermont in Kanas, Texas in Wisonsonian time. Meteoric water, with study, turned out to be rain. It ran downhill in consequent, subsequent, obsequent, resquent, and not a few insequent streams.
Sure, in my field, we pride ourselves on using terms that everyone understands. Then we redefine them: "social navigation"? "awareness"? "collaborative spaces"?
A "Friend" on Friendster is different from a friend in person, and an "egocentric social network" isn't a way to describe P*ris H*lton. A "visualization" doesn't involve finding a happy place, and the "graph" that I draw doesn't come in pie or bar forms.
In other words, even the technical terms I use aren't the same as the technical terms they're stealing from.
January 31, 2004 05:16 PM | TrackBack | in Dissertation