The Exchange, February 2005

Issue 12(1), February 2005

In this issue

Columbo, not Poirot

by Jean-luc Doumont

This article previously appeared in the IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter 45:4, 19, July/August 2001.

Humans are story-telling creatures. Children all over the planet love to listen to tales of all kinds: real or fictitious sequences of events leading from a “Once upon a time” to a (hopefully) “happily ever after”. Adults, too, will spend a fair amount of their leisure time listening to or watching stories, and time after time, enjoy being kept in suspense from the start to the (sad or happy) end.

It's not surprising, then, that storytelling serves as a mold for many acts of professional communication, whether oral or written. And yet, while there is nothing wrong with entertaining one's audience along the way, keeping it in suspense usually backfires.

To illustrate this paradox, I often ask participants in my training programs which parts of a document readers are primarily interested in. “The conclusions,” most of them answer immediately. “And the introduction, too,” some of them add. I then ask which parts authors are usually most interested in. “Well... the body,” they admit, having suddenly become aware of the mismatch. Still, when I ask how this awareness might change their writing strategy, few venture to propose anything. My own suggestion to place the conclusions immediately after the introduction—admittedly a devil's advocate suggestion at this point—is typically greeted with skepticism, if not outright disbelief: “you can't do that,” many retort.

Many technical documents, in other words, are structured much like an Agatha Christie novel. Early in the document, readers learn about a “case” to be solved. Yet they have to wait until the very last page to be told the solution. Meanwhile, they follow the investigator through all the chronological details of his or her painstaking work, including all the false leads and dead ends. Scientists and engineers, it has been said, like to recreate for their audience all the pain and suffering they went through themselves—much like Christie's Hercule Poirot likes to flaunt the workings of his “little grey cells.”

One scientific field that breaks the chronological reporting paradigm somewhat is mathematics. As a child, I had thought that mathematicians typically woke up in the morning with a new theorem in mind, then spent the day at the office trying to prove it. While this may hold true for some theorems, such as Fermat's, I was to realize later that mathematicians proceeded just like everyone else: hard work led to conclusions, not the other way around. When reporting their work, however, mathematicians present their conclusion first—calling it a theorem—then detail their hard work reaching that conclusion for those interested in the journey as well as the destination. In doing so, they strive to limit the details to whatever is strictly necessary to prove the theorem, giving preference to the most elegant (that is, the simplest) proof of all.

Similarly, effective documents present conclusions up front—though not without proper context first—and supporting information afterwards. In essence, they tell the beginning of the story, then the end, and finally the middle. Giving away the reason for the work and the outcome of it is the purpose of a well-written abstract or executive summary, a stand-alone piece that tells readers all they need to remember. The remainder may then be a chronological story, with its own start (introduction) and end (conclusion), or it may be limited to whatever discussion helps make the point. This discussion makes all the more sense since readers already know the conclusions.

Effective professional documents are thus closer to an episode of Lieutenant Columbo than they are to a Hercule Poirot novel: because we know the murderers early on, we enjoy all the more the battle of wits between the murderers and the detective in a raincoat.

Dr. Jean-luc Doumont teaches and provides advice on professional speaking, writing, and graphing. For more than fifteen years, he has helped audiences of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities structure their thoughts and construct their communication.

Editorial: The path of science runs not smoothly

by Geoff Hart (ghart@videotron.ca)

In one stereotypical view of the scientific method, researchers read all the literature related to a particular research problem, thereby gaining a complete understanding of what is known and what remains unknown. They then carefully design an experiment intended to fill in the gaps in the existing knowledge or to build upon existing knowledge and extend its scope. Since the universe is mechanistic and proceeds by known and increasingly well-understood laws, no surprises should arise: the experiment may generate a positive or negative result, but that result will surely fall within a comfortingly known range of possibilities. In this stereotype, science proceeds slowly and methodically, relentlessly pushing back the borders of ignorance and casting an increasing circle of light into the universe's darker corners.

Fortunately, the universe we live in is much more interesting than that.

The problem with this stereotype is that it ignores is how often science proceeds in an entirely different manner—one in which chance and surprise and serendipity sometimes play a more important role than sheer force of logic in the journey towards understanding. Here are a few examples, ranging from the sublime to the considerably less so:

Sour grapes

It's quite likely that fermentation, the process by which microorganisms (yeasts in particular) convert plant sugars into alcohol, was discovered entirely by accident. If you leave a pitcher of fruit juice open to the atmosphere, all kinds of unpleasant things will fall into it—if, as was often the case before pasteurization, they weren't already present in the drink. Some of these things will be vagabond yeast cells floating carefree and ubiquitous through the air. When they land in the drink, they fall upon its sugars with shrill microbial cries of delight and immediately set about producing a primitive yet oddly satisfying form of beverage.

Some early chemical engineer had the wit to wonder how the drink had changed in such a pleasant manner—and rather than simply pouring out the ruined drink and solving the problem of how to keep fruit juice pure, went on to research how to produce an ever-finer wine. Something similar undoubtedly occurred with wet wheat and barley. It's fun to speculate that while in vino veritas became the battle cry of the drunken philosopher, it was the search for the perfect beer that drove the evolution of many early forms of chemistry—just as it now inspires the creative efforts of more modern engineers.

Bad bread and sick cows

Speaking of errant microorganisms, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin quite by chance when a bacterial culture dish accidentally exposed to the atmosphere allowed entry to a few spores from a simple bread mold (Penicillium). Immediately setting about making themselves at home, these spores germinated into fungal hyphae that secreted a chemical compound that killed the surrounding bacteria, leaving a clear patch in an otherwise cloudy mess of bacteria. We know this compound today as "penicillin". Had Fleming simply discarded the culture dish as having been "spoiled" by the adventitious mold—a perfectly reasonable decision, given that his goal was to culture the bacteria while seeking substances capable of killing them—the discovery of modern antibiotics might have been delayed by decades.

Similarly, we might still be living with the terrible threat of smallpox and many other diseases if a cattle breeder, Benjamin Jesty, hadn't noticed that milkmaids exposed to cowpox truly were immune to the greater scourge of smallpox—something that until that time had been considered nothing more than an old wife's tale. (It often pays to listen to those old wives.) Edward Jenner took this one step further and actually inoculated a child with cowpox and subsequently with smallpox. The child survived, and the science of "vaccination" was born. Etymological note: This word comes from the Latin root vacce—cow—in honor of the humble source of the discovery.

Vulcanized rubber

The pollution-belching cars most of us now own are difficult to imagine without rubber tires; after all, the traditional wheeled carriage or wagon rode on solid wooden or iron wheels that made travel painful in the extreme, since useful springs or shock absorbers were rare. These wheels were also fragile, and could not sustain high speeds. It seemed likely that rubber, brought back to Europe around the time of Columbus's return from the New World, would eventually prove to be a useful solution to this problem, since the substance had excellent shock-absorbing properties. Yet native rubber proved to be an entirely unsuitable material; it's far too soft and fragile to create useful tires.

Charles Goodyear (certainly a familiar family name!) solved the problem quite accidentally while he was experimenting with mixtures of native rubber and sulfur in an attempt to improve native rubber. While mixing a rubber–sulfur solution in a pot atop his stove, he carelessly spilled some onto a hot skillet. The resulting "vulcanized" rubber proved strong and durable, and soon revolutionized transportation, among other things. Another etymological note: much though it might be tempting to assume that this name derives from Gene Roddenberry's planet of hyperlogical logical positivists—the stereotype of a scientist if ever there were—Vulcan is actually the Roman god of fire and the forge.

Soap that floats

If, like me, you're one of the modern cadre of showerers who shuns the bathtub for your ablutions, you may not be aware that Ivory soap, that most iconic of brands, floats in water. This isn't particularly useful in the shower, but if you've ever lost a bar of soap under two feet of murky bathwater, you'd presumably be grateful for this unusual property. Though it's tempting to hypothesize that floating soap was the result of a careful audience analysis, those of us who work with development managers know how unlikely this is. In fact, floating soap resulted from nothing more than a simple industrial accident. Some anonymous factory worker inadvertently left the mixing machine turned on overnight, and the ensuing overnight whipping incorporated too much air into the batch of soap. The low-density result proved insufficiently dense to sink. Rather than discarding the "spoiled" batch of soap, Procter and Gamble realized they could turn a mistake into a marketing triumph and the rest, as they say, is history. (More than a century of history, in fact.)

Whether whipped butter, whipped cream, whipped latté, and other frothy items float in bathwater is an experiment I leave to other, more adventurous researchers.

An indifferent adhesive

Spencer Silver had been experimenting with new formulations for strong adhesives while working for 3M, and among his various batches of glue, found one that worked just about well enough to hold two pieces of paper together so long as neither piece was strongly motivated to go elsewhere. A clear failure given his project objectives, but since no experimental result is ever useless to the true researcher, Silver mentioned his results to colleagues, filed the results, and moved on to bigger and better things. So it was that several years later, a fellow 3M researcher and choir member named Arthur Fry found himself increasingly frustrated in his choral efforts: he kept losing his place in his hymnal, and wished for a secure means of marking his place. Suddenly, inspiration struck, and Fry recalled Silver's adhesive and wondered whether it might solve his pagination problems. Indeed it did, and thus was born the Post-it note.

Serendipity and stereotype

What each of these anecdotes has in common is the fact that a seeming failure or an unexpected result opened the eyes of an openminded researcher to entirely new vistas of discovery—some frivolous, as in the case of whipped soap, and some world-altering, as in the case of antibiotics and vaccines. As scientific communicators, we're somewhat less likely than our researcher and engineer colleagues to come up with such serendipitous discoveries. Yet the lesson of these anecdotes remains clear: that stereotypes can blind us to the more interesting possibilities that lie all around us, waiting for a keen mind to discover.

What communications stereotypes have we accepted without question? What might we discover by going beyond those stereotypes? Which of our failures contain the seeds of future greatness? Inquiring newsletter editors want to know!

Feedback from the rechartering survey

by Geoff Hart, Manager, Scientific Communication SIG (ghart@videotron.ca)

In the last issue of 2004, I informed SIG members that STC will be requiring all SIGs to go through a rechartering exercise in the near future. Even by the standards of the survey profession, I got very few responses. If you didn't already send me your feedback on the questions I raised, please have a look at that article and send me your thoughts. Here's what I have heard from you thus far:

Our mission statement

The current mission statement has generally been well received, but there's a perception that perhaps we haven't lived up to it. This is true enough; I really have insufficient time to work on promoting our SIG, among other things because the newsletter, though it's a labor of love, takes up much of the free time I do have available to devote to SIG activities.

What we need is a committee of people willing to ponder how to work harder on fulfilling our mission, willing to work to do so, and willing to get SIG members more involved in developing activities for our SIG. If you think you might be interested in taking this on as a project, please contact me.

Newsletter

As the most visible evidence of our SIG's continued existence, the newsletter is clearly appreciated and generally scores high marks. Nonetheless, we need more contributors to keep the newsletter alive and interesting. If you've got something you'd like to say, please say it! (We do have a "letters to the editor" column, but in the absence of any letters, I only rarely have an opportunity to include it in the newsletter.) Better still, contribute an article—or ask a friend or colleague who has interesting things to say to write one. I'd have more time to devote to SIG activities if I spent less time hunting down and capturing contributors.

Don't forget that an article doesn't have to be particularly involved or difficult. Something as simple as the "Science Songs" article is a great way to fill space and amuse or inform our readers. If you stumble across an interesting science-related Web site, send me the URL and a 200-word description.

Web site

As is obvious if you've visited our Web site, I haven't had enough time to do much more than keep the newsletter archives up to date. We really need to find a Webmaster who has the time and energy to make the site begin to work for us. One way to do so might be to compile a list of compatible kindred spirits, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and invite them to form a Web ring. Another might be to evangelize the SIG by improving the quality of the search engine keywords and submitting the site to the main search engines. I'm somewhat equivocal about that suggestion, because the site should primarily benefit SIG members, but on the other hand, making our site available to search engines could gain us new members—once we have content there that will attract new members. A bit of a Catch-22 situation, as you can imagine.

Would it be possible or useful to set up an instant messaging (IM) community for our Web site? If so, we'd need someone willing to discuss how to implement such a community via our Web site, and someone willing to moderate the community. Interested in being that person? E-mail me!

E-mail

Similarly, our e-mail discussion group is intended primarily for SIG members, but that's not to say it couldn't become a means of recruiting new members. To do so, we'd need to make the discussion group sufficiently active to attract members; this is one of those positive feedback situations when good content attracts new participants, who create new content, which attracts more participants... and so on until the community becomes self-sustaining. One intriguing way to do this might be to adopt an approach similar to STC's telephone seminars. Perhaps a guest moderator might volunteer to pose a question and stimulate discussion every week or two? If that role interests you, please contact me. (Ideally, the discussions should also be summarized for the newsletter; in addition to providing valuable content for those who don't subscribe to the e-mail discussions, this might attract more subscribers for these discussions.)

Miscellany

Outreach activities are always interesting. For the past three years, I've participated in career-week events at local universities to evangelize our profession and share what I've learned with students preparing to graduate. If you've ever participated in a school science fair, this can be a great place to mention STC to the sponsors (and to the students if they're old enough) and distribute brochures. If you've participated in this way, why not submit an article to the newsletter so that others can benefit from your experience?

I've been contacted several times by STC, asking that I submit a proposal for a telephone seminar. Given the limited time I have available, I haven't yet had time to propose such a seminar. But if there were sufficient interest, a seminar oriented towards scientific communicators is something I could easily create—or recruit someone for if the topic isn't within my repertoire. If you're interested, send me your suggestions for topics.

Rechartering redux

Rechartering will soon be forced upon us, and rather than looking upon it as simply a "paper" exercise, I'd prefer to turn it into an opportunity to reinvigorate our SIG. That's not something I can do on my own, and even if it were, then the community would be shaped entirely by my interests and priorities. Please help by providing feedback, and perhaps even by volunteering to undertake any of the activities I've suggested in this article.

Print or HTML? Your choice!

by Geoff Hart, SIG Manager (ghart@videotron.ca)

A few years ago, STC asked the SIGs to help reduce costs by shifting from printed newsletters, mailed at great expense, to online newsletters. At the time, I requested that SIG members inform me of their preferences so that we could continue mailing printed copies to those who needed them. Very few SIG members preferred the printed copies, but I made sure that anyone who asked for print at that time would receive a printed copy.

In the meantime, I've been creating this newsletter in two formats: very simple HTML for those who wanted to read the newsletter online but who had no patience for long downloads (often because they were restricted to slow dialup connections), and PDF for those who want a traditionally desktop-published version. Both versions are available at our newsletter site so you can choose whichever one you prefer.

She blinded me with science?

by Geoff Hart, SIG Manager (ghart@videotron.ca)

Readers of a certain age may recall Thomas Dolby's 1983 pop hit She blinded me with science with fond nostalgia. Older readers with a penchant for Gilbert and Sullivan may have been inspired by Tom Lehrer's brilliant parody of Modern Major General, The Elements Song. But any reader who might be tempted to believe that there's nothing so unmusical a subject as science should point their Web browsers to the "Math And Science Song Information, Viewable Everywhere" (MASSIVE) database, maintained by Greg Crowther of the University of Washington. Search by title, performer, writer, or even keyword—though oddly enough for a scientifically oriented site, not using Boolean operators in your keywords—and see what turns up in the list of more than 1800 songs!

Many of these songs come with a sample MP3 file or other audio format for your listening pleasure. Better still, have a look at the companion MASSIVE Radio site for streaming audio to help you through your latest engineering report.

For readers who belie the stereotype of the artless scientist, there's even a Science Songwriters Association where you can met and mingle with other aurally inspired science geeks.

Parting thoughts

"It's worth remembering that for most of humanity, science is hard work. But the scientists know that they're playing a vast game, and being paid to do it. It feels ridiculous. One day they know they'll be caught."—Larry Niven, What I tell librarians

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“Somebody in science has to [play the role of stating] things provocatively to stir up the pot and get people to look critically at issues they weren’t looking at before.”—Walter Willett, Harvard University epidemiologist

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"If there's one thing you learn as a scientist, it's never close your mind off to things that seem far-fetched."—Meenakshi Wadhwa

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"Science makes a lousy Weltanschaung, doesn't it? It's so cold and rational. In terms of a sense of place, the sterility of the lab can't hold much power next to the mysterium of a good Romanesque church... [But if] you look at the metamorphosis of scientific rationalism into modern environmentalism, you can see the beginning of just that. Science has always had that potential."—Jack Hitt, A gospel according to the Earth

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"The Book of Nature may well be written in the language of mathematics, but it is written in many other languages as well, and passages inscrutable in one may be legible in another."—Aaron E. Hirsh, Signs of Life

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"The great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."—Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825–1895)

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"Science must often transcend sight to win insight."—Stephen Jay Gould

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"Science needs to be humanized, we all know that. It can be too insular and niche-specialized. It needs to get out and mingle more, make new friends, joke and argue late into the night over a couple of sambucas."—Natalie Angier

Contact and copyright information

The Exchange is published on behalf of the Scientific Communication special interest group of the Society for Technical Communication. Material in the Exchange can be reprinted without permission if credit is given to the author and a copy of the reprint is sent to the editor. Please send comments, letters, and articles to the editor.

Editor, publisher, and SIG manager:

Geoff Hart (ghart@videotron.ca)

Webmaster:

Geoff Hart (ghart@videotron.ca)

© 2005, Society for Technical Communication (901 North Stuart St., Suite 904, Arlington, Virginia 22203-1822 U.S.A., 703-522-4114, 703-522-2075 fax, www.stc.org)