Via BioCurious, the Public Library of Science offers an op-ed titled Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published. The advice is aimed at biologists, but it's broadly applicable. I especially like:
Rule 4: If you do not write well in the English language, take lessons early; it will be invaluable later.
This is not just about grammar, but more importantly comprehension. The best papers are those in which complex ideas are expressed in a way that those who are less than immersed in the field can understand. Have you noticed that the most renowned scientists often give the most logical and simply stated yet stimulating lectures? This extends to their written work as well. Note that writing clearly is valuable, even if your ultimate career does not hinge on producing good scientific papers in English language journals. Submitted papers that are not clearly written in good English, unless the science is truly outstanding, are often rejected or at best slow to publish since they require extensive copyediting.
Now, if only I could get my lab students to understand that writing is an important part of the process...
Comments
# 1 | Stringy theorist (not) | March 14, 2006 11:01 AM
�It is a striking fact that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this complex and unattractive conjectural theory. There is not even a serious proposal for what the dynamics of the fundamental �M-theory� is supposed to be or any reason at all to believe that its dynamics would produce a vacuum state with the desired properties. The sole argument generally given to justify this picture of the world is that perturbative string theories have a massless spin two mode and thus could provide an explanation of gravity, if one ever managed to find an underlying theory for which perturbative string theory is the perturbative expansion.� � Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch (2002), http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0206135
Should the "don't be Peter Woit" advice be extended to Galileo and Feynman:
Feynman�s statements in Davies & Brown, �Superstrings� 1988, at pages 194-195:
�� I do feel strongly that this is nonsense! � I think all this superstring stuff is crazy and is in the wrong direction. � I don�t like it that they�re not calculating anything. � why are the masses of the various particles such as quarks what they are? All these numbers � have no explanations in these string theories - absolutely none! �� - http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=272#comment-5295
Sheldon �string theory has failed in its primary goal� Glashow - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-glashow.html
Martinus �string theory is a figment of the theoretical mind� Veltman - http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/981238149X/701-5527495-9406712
Phil �string theory a futile exercise as physics�Anderson- http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html#andersonp
Bob �string theory a 50-year-old woman wearing way too much lipstick� Laughlin - http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL
Dan �string theory is a complete scientific failure� Friedan - http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0204131
Also note that even Dr Lubos Motl has expressed concerns with the �landscape� aspect of ST.
In addition, Sir Roger Penrose analysed the problems with string theory at a technical level, concluding: �in addition to the dimensionality issue, the string theory approach is (so far, in almost all respects) restricted to being merely a perturbation theory.� - The Road to Reality, 2004, page 896.
How simple should the facts, proving that string theory isn't science yet, be made without becoming unconvincing?
;-)