Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy

Introduction

Words are not windowpanes through which we view objects in the world. Language cannot be cleansed of its ambiguity. Words and symbols form an opaque medium of communication and knowing. In part, scientific and technical language serves the authority and interests of its practitioners. And the language can be fuzzy as a result. Those of you who have ever followed a set of simple instructions know that even clear-cut wording leads to mistakes. Imagine trying to replicate a scientific experiment from its presentation in a journal article.

Consider the many ways you use language every day. You use language to tell stories, offer explanations, persuade someone of your views, make jokes, write letters, the list is endless. Traditionally in science and technology, practitioners saw the primary function of language, words as well as mathematical equations and symbolic notation, as representing nature or technology in words and symbols. On this view, words and symbols "stand for" or "correspond to" objects in the world. Nature, however, is difficult to capture. Natural phenomena are vast and perplexing. Scientific and technical language often tries to describe objects we cannot see and forces we minimally understand.

By asserting objective representation as their only goal, many scientific and technical communicators ignore other aspects of language and possibilities for understanding nature. Still, because of its complexity and apparent accuracy scientific and technical language retains authority and privilege over our more mundane observations of the world. The authority of science lies in its ability to persuade audiences. But how do practitioners both maintain the authority of science and persuade audiences?

The Development of Scientific Style

Before the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) speculated that Adam spoke a "pure language." Adam expressed thoughts with a "nakedness of mind" reflecting the innocence and simplicity of God's children. When speaking, Adam called out the true name of all things. After the Fall, language, like mankind, was corrupt. Bacon insisted that the goal of philosophical language was restoring the purity that existed before the Fall. In 1667, Thomas Sprat in History of the Royal Society in London formulated one duty of society members as "... to separate the knowledge of nature, from the colours of Rhetorick, the devices of Fancy..." Another member of the Royal Society advocated that parliament act to stop the use of metaphors by preachers. Subsequently, the "plain style" of scientific reporting was to be free of ornamental speech. Metaphor and analogy were unacceptable. If frills such as "poetic expression" entered a scholarly text, a lack of genuine content was suspected. The career of French naturalist Georges Buffon (1707-1788), whose Historie Naturelle ran 250 editions, suffered as colleagues in the Académie Française criticized his "literary" style.

Robert Boyle echoed Bacon's sentiments in articulating the hope that refining scientific language would atone for the confusion that engulfed humanity at the tower of Babel. Boyle's emphasis on experimentation and plain writing deeply influenced concepts of a scientific style. For Boyle, experiments were a microcosm for the process of reasoning at which scientists arrived at truth. When witnessed, an experiment communicated directly to the audience. While an audience could dispute what a scientist said or wrote, there were no disputes about what happened as observers viewed an experiment. The "way of experimentation" was not like "the way of talk." Talk resulted in confusion. Words led to different interpretations of events which, in turn, inspired argument. Direct observation, for Boyle, led to fewer interpretations. Experiments remained unaffected by the situation in which they took place. Observation was objective. To achieve greater clarity, science writing should mimic the process of performing and watching an experiment.

Thomas Hobbes recognized the rhetorical character of Boyle's experimentalism. Observations, Hobbes countered, were not unaffected by the situation in which they took place. The audiences for experiments were not naïve observers, rather they were trained practitioners. This type of observation, Hobbes claimed, was biased. As the audiences became better trained, they raised fewer questions about experimental procedures. Once procedures were internalized it was unnecessary to verbalize them, an audience's silence implied assent to the methods used. Hobbes grew concerned about the lack of a critical self-awareness of observers. When verbalizing their questions, thoughts and ideas, warts and all, an audience's assumptions and prejudices were on the table. Each instance of articulating an observation challenged both speakers and writers to revisit their thinking. Hobbes maintained that the rhetorical character of verbal or written discourse was easier to identify and revise than the rhetorical character of an unarticulated observation. As experimental practice became tacit, it grew more difficult to identify confusion and misunderstanding. In contrast, all that Boyle wanted was certain knowledge through experiment and observation. What he got was much more.

The outcome of debates in the seventeenth century about the role of experimentation, and its presentation, in early modern science is apparent in the following characteristics of contemporary technical writing style:

References to what is "behind the text." In the sciences, and other technical disciplines, writers refer to laboratory equipment, experiments, calculations and research on which the text is based. If a reader wanted to challenge the claims in a science textbook or journal article, they would move next to a laboratory full of equipment and procedures they likely would not understand. What stands behind the text in the sciences gives it authority. Science writers do not need many words to anchor their claims. As a result, scientific writing style is shorter in length and includes visual aids and mathematical formulas that represent laboratories and machines.

Absence of an "institutional memory." By institutional memory we mean how well an academic discipline, corporation or agency remembers the historical and social origins of current practices. The instrumental success and cumulative nature of experimentation permits scientists to ignore the origin of their practices. After all if a procedure works why question it? There is no compelling reason to investigate who developed a technique, why and under what circumstances. Emphasis on experimentation, then, allows scientific and technical communicators to forget the contexts in which practices were developed. As a result, scientific writing style is often not reflective or contextual.

Emphasis on how something is said. As modern science developed so did restrictions regarding form. Form was posed as the key to content. To achieve clarity, Bacon, Boyle and other early modern scientists demanded a uniform presentation. Attacks on "the rhetorical" and "the literary" required practitioners to abandon the pursuit of a personal style. Scientific style was institutionalized. An emphasis on experimentation, then, entailed a "plain" narrative style. As a result, scientific writing style frequently stresses form in relation to content.

Self-censorship on what is said. To obtain "certain" knowledge, members of the British Royal Academy decided not to speak of, or experimentally test, metaphysical (mostly religious) claims. Further, at the insistence of Charles II, scientists stayed away from matters of "morals" and politics. As long as science served the needs of the crown, the crown funded and allowed scientific practice. Scientists conformed to the intellectual boundaries set by the state. An emphasis on experimentation, then, allowed scientists to legitimate their practices to the state supporting them. As a result, scientific writing style shows the strain of balancing the need for government funding, the desire to maintain autonomy, and the demands of the lay public.

Functions of Language

All language serves many functions and allows us to employ many voices, none of which are mutually exclusive of the others. For simplicity's sake we may count three functions of language: rhetorical, representational and constitutive. To understand scientific and technical communication, we need to recognize these functions within it. And to undertake scientific and technical communication, we need to learn to use these functions.

Rhetorical Language

A user of rhetorical language attempts to discover the best means of persuasion for a given case. Again, "rhetoric" often implies an underhanded and not-entirely-honest means of persuasion. Classically, though, the term and its subject were viewed quite differently: Aristotle, for instance, considered rhetoric a set useful and respectable practices for speech making.

By recognizing rhetoric, we can better understand the means by which we are persuaded, and, consequently, can persuade others. In using rhetoric, we appeal to the assumptions and attitudes of an audience. Rhetoric has many functions: teaching, motivating, persuading, pleasing and inspiring, to name a few. Such functions are necessarily a part of all communication, including scientific and technical communication.

Consider the following series of statements:

(1) Battery technology must be improved before electric cars can be mass produced in America.

(2) Since battery technology must be improved before electric cars can be mass produced in America our engineering firm, 21st Century Technologies, is actively pursuing government and private funding for research on batteries.

(3) The Chairman of the Chrysler corporation stated that because battery technology must be improved before the electric car can be mass produced in America he would recommend to the board of trustees that Chrysler take a "wait and see" attitude toward future plans for mass producing electric cars.

Sentence (1) states a matter of fact. Taken in isolation, the statement is innocuous. Inserted in sentence (2), sentence (1), still a statement of fact, is taken as a challenge and opportunity for funding for the members of an engineering firm. Inserted in sentence (3), sentence (1) becomes a reason, or perhaps an excuse, for suspending plans for mass producing electric cars. One can imagine that the stock price of the engineering firm in (2) might drift down slightly after the pronouncement in (3). In both (2) and (3) the interests expressed transform the meaning and persuasive impact of (1). The historical sequence of these statement also transforms the meaning of (1). If the Chairman of Chrysler heard of the engineering firm's pronouncement before his own, he may have been inclined, albeit grudgingly, to change his recommendation. In either instance, (2) and (3) lend a mutually influential, persuasive context to an initially innocuous statement.

If one knows the values of their audience and can find a means to appeal to those values, they are more likely to persuade. The problem is that values are likely to differ with audiences of various expertise. For an audience which shares your expertise, for instance, you may outline your method much more rigorously, and make your conclusion modest. For a more general audience, you may gloss your method and concentrate on your conclusion, perhaps even adding a section concerning the implications of the conclusion. For an audience which shares your expertise, you may use specialized language, and may refer to projects of which your audience has knowledge. For a more general audience, you may need to educate as you persuade.

Similarly, when you are on the "receiving end" of the communication pipeline, an appreciation of rhetoric will still be helpful: even when you do not completely understand the subject presented, recognizing rhetoric will help you to understand the presenter's intentions.

Representational Language

If language is viewed as strictly representational, you assume that a given word may stand for a given object, and do so unambiguously. At some point nearly all children ask questions like "how can I know what you see as green is what I see as green?" Many of us dismiss the question as unimportant, or at least as irrelevant to everyday experience. And many of us assume a common understanding because it is too much trouble to do otherwise. Technical communicators too, have assumed an understanding; traditionally, they have regarded language as strictly representational , that is, they have assumed that a given word accurately and unambiguously represents a given object. On one hand, the benefits of this assumption are practical and obvious: if we were continually wondering whether what I mean by a certain word is what you mean by it, we would have little time to do anything. On the other hand, to see the world as a series of objective linguistic representations we experience only a small part of it. While viewing language as strictly representational may expedite the work of technical communicators, this view neglects the work in science and technology accomplished by using the rhetorical and constitutive functions of language.

From the point of view of daily experience, such a view of language as strictly representational appears somewhat simplistic. Our daily conversations can be careless, full of ambiguity and misunderstanding, or exact with respect to rules and accepted canons of use. A great deal of what we try to "represent" to one another are concepts, and, as you know, concepts can be hard to grasp. Think about the most recent disagreement you had with you parents or friends. Chances are you could trace the misunderstanding to what was meant by words like "expensive", "soon" or "fine." In some instances you take advantage of such ambiguity, or you have been taken advantage of by such ambiguity.

From the point of view of science and technology, words and symbols can accurately represent objects in nature and be used to solve problems (e.g., F=MA, the periodic table of elements). However, scientists and technologists are finding out more about the phenomena they capture in equations and tables. While Einstein's theories of relativity do not overthrow Newton's mechanics, we understand "force" differently today than we did in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries. Prior to the discovery of oxygen, many scientists believed in the existence phlogiston, a chemical released during combustion. Demitry Mendeleyev's (1834-1907) periodic table has changed considerably with the discovery of additional elements, as has our knowledge of the elements themselves.

Jargon

Usually we associate the term "jargon" with its pejorative definition as unintelligible talk or pretentious terminology. However, jargon is also the language or vocabulary particular to a group, profession or organization. Part of becoming a member in a particular field or profession involves your correct use of its specialized language. The use of jargon confirms your knowledge of the field and can provide more concise terminology than everyday language. In contrast, jargon marks boundaries where non members cannot enter a field, and through which its members cannot easily pass. Subjected to "legalese", "insurancese", "academese", and obscure medical terminology, individual consumers and public advocates demand these professions reform their linguistic practices to give an open accounting of their activities. Taxpayers have made the same demands of scientists, technologists and congressional representatives, that arguments for funding "big science" projects be made in a language in which the public can make informed policy decisions.

Your own use of jargon needs to be tempered with the sense that almost any profession you enter will involve direct public contact. Your responsibility as a scientific and technical communicator will be to make an honest effort to present information intelligibly to allow for public understanding of your profession. But jargon can also be a dangerous source of power. Those possessing a specialized or technical language have power over those who do not and who require the services of a specialist or expert. One of the most obvious examples of the successful and unsuccessful exercise of the "power of jargon" is the law. When a layperson seeks out the services of a lawyer, they, in a sense, hire a guide. Lawyers guide their clients through the system and translate specialist language so that the client can make an informed decision. If a lawyer is knowledgeable and can help the client to comprehend the system, and, accordingly, their own best interests, the system can work. Nevertheless, the lawyer has a particular power over the client in knowing the discreet language of the justice system. As a professional, specialist or researcher you will command a specialist language. Your use and reform of that language can either encourage or discourage the equitable participation of nonspecialists in your field.

Constitutive Language

A user of constitutive language appreciates that the meaning of a given word is negotiated. A conception of language as purely representational is deaf to the full range of meaning of a given word: all language is inseparable from a host of assumptions and prejudices, in fact, what you mean by a certain word is likely to differ at least slightly (and perhaps significantly) from what I mean by it. Any user of language, and any technical communicator, will benefit from this recognition.

Figurative language, the language of metaphor, is often constitutive. In other words, certain figurative language shapes the conception of the field in which it exists, often producing an immediate and profound effect. One example is the metaphor of the gene as a "master molecule" which is the key to controlling human development. Although the metaphor may or may not accurately represent its subject, its rhetorical power is undeniable: the metaphor helped persuade Congress to funnel huge sums of money into the human genome project.

When you read you overlay your meaning on the words, and thereby complement and shade the meaning intended by their author. The resulting meaning may be similar to the author's, but it is likely to be at least somewhat different; you may associate a given word with other things, or her argument may remind you of another. And so the final meaning of the text, that is, the meaning of the text after it has been written and read, is not entirely within the writer's control. Rather, the meaning is negotiated between writer and reader. And if language itself is constitutive, then the final meaning of a text is negotiated even at the most fundamental level: the meaning of even a single word results from a kind of unconscious compromise between its author and its reader.

Rhetorical Themes

Scientific and technical communicators have traditionally employed rhetorical structures at once larger and more implicit in their writing, themes (or topoi). We may define themes as ideas used by writers to appeal to the principles held by specific audiences. Generally, linguistic choices within the sciences have been. Chemical engineers, animal behaviorists, even the group we may define as "all scientists", communicate with and within themes which appeal to sympathies and expectations of the reader. Certain themes, pragmatism, accuracy, and brevity, for instance, appear in almost all scientific and technical writing. As a writer, you may make a text more persuasive by using any of these themes; as a reader, you may understand a text better when you can identify the themes it uses. Nevertheless, these themes are not disembodied objects of discussion and analysis that can be abstracted from a text. For instance, what passes for accuracy in the reports of experiments in chemistry and sociology are quite different things. As a writer, you need to be conscious of what themes you are using in relation to your audience; as a reader, you need to be careful not to impose on a text themes which are not really there.

Appeals to Emotion

Ideally, a scientific paper is free of emotion. In practice however, a paper is inevitably affected by both the commentary and disputes which precede it. Because the commentary and disputes are inevitably emotional, the resulting paper is likely to carry into itself some of that emotion. Further, the very vocabulary of scientists and technologists often has emotional resonances. For example, the mathematician who uses the term "elegant" to describe a theorem believes that the theorem has value because it is simple and (perhaps) symmetrical. The belief is at some level emotional. The computer designer who uses the term "kludge" is also appealing to emotion, the word is an insult describing a system that is sloppy and inefficient.

Appeals to Ethos

Ethos may be defined as the fundamental character and spirit of a culture, the underlying sentiment that shapes the beliefs, customs or practices of a group or society. You have heard proponents of Americans in space talk about America's destiny, America's heritage of exploration. They are appealing to an American ethos . Similarly, when scientists or technologists speak to lay audiences, they may represent themselves as part of an ethos, the fundamentally good nature of science, or the fundamentally prosperous and progressive nature of technology. Although ethos may be presented as an essential, constant and natural part of a group or culture, it is not. The ethos of a group is a designation assigned to the group by itself, or assigned, for instance, by critics to the group. Also, the effectiveness of an appeal to ethos can be a matter of timing. For example, in order to get funding proponents of space exploration could more effectively petition America's sense of destiny and exploration in the 1960's, after the success of the Soviet Sputnik, than they could after the Challenger disaster. Taking into account matters of time and place, an appeal to a fundamental set of beliefs by writers is a common and persuasive ploy.

Appeals to Natural Law

Scientific and technical communication appeals to a belief in a universal natural law, the idea that the universe operates in an orderly, or lawlike, fashion which can be understood through scientific method and empirical study. Before the rise of experimental science in the seventeenth century, the validity of law was understood in explaining something as either conforming to, and deviating from a set of existing standards. The laws of nature, God's law, were seen as eternal, the evidence for which was found in natural phenomena. After the rise of experimental science, natural laws were seen in evidence as a result of conducting experiments. By going into the laboratory, scientists could control the background conditions of nature in order to produce lawlike conditions. Today scientific and technical communicators use themes derived from this idea. They include (but are not limited to): precedent, prediction, verifiability, direct observation, and experimental repeatability.

The persuasive power of much of science is connected to the notion that the truth of science, scientific facts, is universally true and demonstrable. In presenting the results of an experiment, then, scientists can appeal to the applicability and verification of their findings. One of the most remarkable features of natural science has been the almost unquestioned, universal recognition and acceptance of its guiding principles and success by society. By appealing to natural law, scientists appeal to standards of method and conduct they have derived, not to standards derived by other groups or disciplines. The persuasive power in science, then, can be partially understood as an appeal to its own standards of conduct. Other academic disciplines and professions have either followed or turned against seeking scientific standards for justifying their practices. Certain disciplines and professions either try to establish the significance of their practices in terms of concrete outcomes and real world effects, or refuse to be evaluated in any way except as being significant for its own sake.

Persuasion and Critical Thinking
Chapter 6: Part 1

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 6: Part 1

Persuasion and Critical Thinking Chapter 6: Part 1

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 6: Part 1

Persuasion and Critical Thinking
Chapter 6: Part 1