Paper capers

Real authors sometimes get paid to sit in bookstores and write. The science fiction writer Harlan Ellison used to do this quite often. People would stare through the window, or sit inside on easy chairs drinking coffee, watching the creative process, perhaps hoping that the inspiration would wash over to them. Then there are the Three Day Novel Writing Contests, with the competition usually occurring in private, an honour system ensuring that it didn't take the artist four, or maybe even five, days to write that novel.

I'm trying to imagine the composition of scientific papers as a spectator sport, or article writing competitions with acerbic Simon Cowell-like judges making comments like, "That reads like some kind of horrid third grade science report." It would be feasible nowadays. Before so much of the world's scientific literature was available on line, we were constantly flipping through notebooks or rushing off to libraries, searching for data or faded photocopies of treasured references. It would have been a disjointed process for spectators. But now, Laboratory Information Management Systems capture all data and experimental protocols in digital form immediately, eliminating the need to troll through mounds of laboratory note books looking for experimental temperatures or chemical concentrations.

At least, in theory. Despite computerization, most of us have scattered agglutinated masses of Post It notes, with data and observations scribbled alongside phone numbers, licence numbers once needed to install software, and half-finished to do lists. Too much critical information is haphazardly stored in our memories, in danger of being overwritten by lyrics to pop songs. It needs to be written down, either on the computer (where you will have to remember how to find it again later) or on paper. There is a whole field of academic study devoted to reinterpreting the history of science as recorded in laboratory note books. How frightening.

The scientific paper is considered a literary form by some, although most people will never read one. They are the bedrock of human knowledge, but to an outsider, staring at actual bedrock would be more interesting. Students, many of whom pursue science because they don't like writing, nevertheless must learn to write papers. Their careers depend on it. Students in foreign lands with exotic native tongues have to do it in English. Unlike a term paper, a passing grade is not good enough, and you have to be aiming at an imaginary 80 or 90% grade all the time. If you don't make it, there will be peer reviewers, associate editors, and editors-in-chief harassing you, criticizing your logic, your sentences, and your grammar. It is like having three Simon Cowells criticizing your work, but anonymously.

The sad truth is that writing scientific papers doesn't get much easier with experience. The research becomes more complex, you collaborate with a diversity of people, and somehow it is all supposed to fit together. You might imagine that we would start with an outline, and then just get on with it, but it rarely happens that way. 

One of my colleagues has permanent writers' block. When we were both in the early part of our careers, we just had to publish some of the data to keep a grant going. It was really her paper to write, but she couldn't do it. Her first language is French and she is one of these people who talks with her hands. So we sat beside each other at the computer, me typing and trying to avoid being slapped as she waved her arms around. I would tap out a sentence and ask, "Is this what you mean?" And she would say, "Not quite," and we would go from there. Three days later we had our manuscript, which when published was my most cited paper for a long time.

My only remotely public paper writing performance occurred on a transatlantic flight. Again, it was a collaboration, in this case with a colleague with a photographic memory who never wrote anything down. We spent an afternoon reviewing all the data, me scribbling on the printouts and asking every question I could imagine. Then, I got on the plane. The battery on my laptop would not last long enough to cross the ocean, so I pulled out a pad of lined paper, a pen, the marked up data sheets and began. I quickly got lost in the process, scribbling away intensively, shuffling papers, dropping things, having one pile of paper in my lap, another on the tray and more in the pocket on the back of the seat. Eventually, I became aware that the woman beside me was observing me with great curiosity, and eventually she caught my eye. "Are you grading papers?" she asked.

That was a good performance, perhaps. But most performers don't improvise all the time, and if we started writing all of our papers in front of an audience, we would probably start repeating ourselves. You might want a musician to sing that song again, but writing the same paper again and again is definitely frowned upon by the scientific establishment. Given how some of my papers turned out, maybe it would be good to write them again to get them right. But to be honest, I'd rather forget them, like those B-sides (or 'bonus tracks') of pop songs that you only play once.