Comments on: Bad science writing truly infuriates me…

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 20:41:54 +0000

I alluded to a career in technical publications in my comment below, and it culminated in managing a group of writers. The bane of my existence were these graduates from college “technical communication” courses who were taught that they needn’t learn about or understand what they were writing about; all they had to do was interview engineers and paraphrase what they said.

I sensed that in the article we’re critiquing. In her bio, the author claims a geeky fascination with all of science and technology, but claims expertise in nothing particular. She probably did some research on the Internet, and wrote it up for the article.

It didn’t take me long to conclude as a pubs manager that I’d much rather coach an engineer to write, and polish the results myself, than to try to educate some liberal arts snot about a complicated technical subject. Give the experts a voice if you want good information.

Good for you for having the integrity to refuse to bullshit about something you knew nothing about.

By: ER

ER — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 16:50:52 +0000

…when I was being groomed as a feature writer for a prominent sailing magazine, I was given an assignment by my mentor (a very well-respected writer in the field) to write a review of safety equipment designed for use on blue-water yachts. These included such items as safety harnesses, carabiners and quick-release shackles, life vests and other flotation devices, man-overboard buoys, foulies and the like.

I refused, saying that I had no expertise in the use or construction of this sort of equipment. I felt my specialty was navigation, particularly traditional navigational techniques and devices, and that I was fundamentally unqualified to give advice on or evaluate safety gear. I was terrified that my uneducated opinions might lead (by commission or omission) to someone’s death or injury.

I was never asked to contribute to that publication again.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 21:49:33 +0000

I couldn’t figure out from the author’s bio whether she’s an incompetent professional or an aspiring amateur. Nichols has a big portfolio, but a lot seems self-published. But I didn’t do an exhaustive audit. The bio pic shows a young person, so I’m leaning toward showing some mercy. Some.

In any case, context around the passage above reveals she’s fundamentally confused about bandwidth versus c. Sure, a laser’s easily a hundred times “faster” than radio, in bits per second. (You could say the same about a teletype compared to Morse.) The whole article was kind of a mess, in my opinion (and after a decade spent as a technical writer, I’ll stand behind my opinion). I sensed a lot of copypasta, all that boiler plate about NASA’s lunar plans and how to communicate in space. She circled the point twice before coming in for a landing.

Oh well. There are thousands of articles like that posted every day, and we should be grateful for what they get right. I don’t think the article reached very many, and the vagueness of the claim, to those not in the know, probably means it’ll do no lasting harm.

You could say the same about our grousing on an obscure internet forum