Abstract
The central purpose of science is to explain (Purtill, 1970). However, who is that explanation for, and how is this explanation communicated once it has been deduced?Scientific research is typically communicated via papers in journals, with an abstract presented as a summary of that explanation. However, in many instances they may be written in a manner which is non-communicatory to a lay reader (Halliday & Martin, 2003). This study begins to investigate if poetry could be used as an alternative form of communication, by first assessing if poetic verse is an effective form of communication to other scientists. In order to assess this suitability, a survey was conducted in which two different groups of participants were asked questions based on a scientific abstract. One group of participants was given the original scientific abstract, whilst the second group was instead given a poem written about the scientific study. Quantitative analysis found that whilst a scientific audience found a poetic interpretation of a scientific abstract to be no less interesting or inspiring than the original prose, they did find it to be less accessible. However, further qualitative analysis suggested that the poem did a good job in conveying a similar meaning to that presented in the original abstract. The results of this study indicate that whilst for a scientific audience poetry should not replace the prose abstract, it could be used alongside the original format to inspire the reader to find out more about the topic. Further research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of this approach for a non-expert audience.Alternative version:Are scientific papers understood,By anyone from outside of the field;And is an abstract really any good,If jargon means its secrets aren’t revealed?Could poetry present a different way,Of summing up research in a nutshell; Presented in a language for the lay,Yet still useful for scientists as well?This study aimed to find if it was true,That poems could be a way to convey fact;By splitting sample researchers in two:And giving each a different abstract.The findings showed that whilst prose was preferred,Related meanings from both were inferred.
Highlights
The central purpose of science is to explain (Purtill, 1970)
Who is that explanation for, and how is this explanation communicated once it has been deduced? Scientific research is typically communicated via papers in journals, but whilst to an insider these papers and journals represent an efficient and effective way of communicating research, to an outsider what they represent and report on may not be at all clear (Meadows, 1985), and in many instances they may be written with a lexical density that makes them inaccessible to a lay reader (Halliday & Martin, 2003)
These are the responses to the survey that was used in this study to assess the effectiveness of poetry as a form of scientific abstract
Summary
The central purpose of science is to explain (Purtill, 1970). who is that explanation for, and how is this explanation communicated once it has been deduced? Scientific research is typically communicated via papers in journals, but whilst to an insider (i.e. a scientist in that field) these papers and journals represent an efficient and effective way of communicating research, to an outsider (i.e. a member of the general public) what they represent and report on may not be at all clear (Meadows, 1985), and in many instances they may be written with a lexical density that makes them inaccessible to a lay reader (Halliday & Martin, 2003).Almost all journals require the authors to provide a word-limited abstract as part of the submission process, and whilst the specifics of these abstracts will vary from journal to journal, their purpose effectively remains the same, with Johnson (1995, pp. 28) defining them as “a concise representation of a document’s contents to enable the reader to determine its relevance to specific information.” If the central purpose of science were to explain, is the central purpose of an abstract a summary of that explanation? Swales (1990) considers a scientific abstract to be a ‘rite of passage’ for gaining entry into the scientific community, and that in order to do so the writer needs to demonstrate an “increasing mastery of the academic dialect” (Orasan, 2001, pp. 2).Andrade (2011, pp. 172) notes that “for the vast majority of readers, the paper does not exist beyond its abstract,” with the majority of researchers using the abstract to determine if the scientific study is relevant to them and worthy of a further investment of their time in reading it in its entirety. Almost all journals require the authors to provide a word-limited abstract as part of the submission process, and whilst the specifics of these abstracts will vary from journal to journal, their purpose effectively remains the same, with Johnson 172) notes that “for the vast majority of readers, the paper does not exist beyond its abstract,” with the majority of researchers using the abstract to determine if the scientific study is relevant to them and worthy of a further investment of their time in reading it in its entirety. As noted by Fletcher (1988), the creation of an abstract is often an extremely important process for clarifying the narrative of the scientific study in the mind of the author(s) themselves. Hartley (2003) found that structured abstracts (i.e. those split into subheadings of: Background, Aims, Methods, Results, and Conclusions, or their equivalents) were found to be more informative and provide greater clarity than their unstructured counterparts
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