Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Writing Science: The Abstract is Poetry, the Paper is Prose

2008; Wiley; Volume: 22; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1096/fj.08-0801ufm

1530-6860

Gerald Weissmann,

Academic Writing and Publishing

“Tortoise,” by Edward Lear (1812–1888), Father of the Limerick. Plate 7, in: Tortoises, Terrapins and Turtles (1872) by James de Carle Sowerby, Edward Lear, in: and John Edward Gray; Henry Sotheran, Joseph Baer and Co., London. Testudo radiata image courtesy MBL/WHOI Library. Edgar Allen Poe (1809–1849), author of “A Sonnet to Science.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress, http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/nation/jb.nation.poe.1.e.html We campaign in Poetry. We govern in Prose Governor Mario Cuomo, 1987 (1) MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Is there nothing other than prose or poetry? MAÎTRE DE PHILOSOPHIE: No, Monsieur: all that isn't prose is poetry; and all that isn't poetry is prose. MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: My God! So for more than forty years I've been speaking prose without knowing it… I'm the most grateful man in the world for your telling me that! There was nothing that Faust wouldn't do To rush out an abstract or two He submitted his soul But forgot the control So the Devil declined his IQ The FASEB Journal, 2008 (3) Scientists, young and old, have been writing poetry without knowing it ever since they composed their first abstract. Whether submitted for a meeting, an Initial There was a young lady named Bright Who traveled much faster than light She started one day In the relative way And returned on the previous night! Anon., 1945 (4) A full-length scientific paper is prosaic by design, extends to several thousand words, and is filled chock-a-block with tables, figure legends, and references. In contrast, a good abstract is lean, taut, and jolts the reader with the shock of the new—in fewer than 250 words. And, again like a limerick, the best are usually quite irreverent. Look at any recent abstract on chordate evolution and/or natural selection, and, to paraphrase Ira Gershwin, “It ain't what you're liable to read in the Bible…” If the abstract is in your own field, you tend to shake your head in wonder, wishing that you'd made the discovery yourself—sometimes, of course, you already have. In either case, a good abstract should evoke an emotional as well as an intellectual response. The best of breed fit Robert Frost's definition of poetry: “when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words (5).” [The abstract] should start with some brief BACKGROUND information: a sentence giving a broad introduction to the field comprehensible to the general reader, and then a sentence of more detailed background specific to your study. This should be followed by the RESULTS, or if the paper is more methods/technique oriented an explanation of OBJECTIVES/METHODS and then the RESULTS. The final sentence should outline the main CONCLUSIONS of the study, in terms that will be comprehensible to all our readers (6).1 The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile. A good abstract—indeed, with Purpose, Procedures, Findings, and Conclusions set in quatrain form—is as fine as any devotee of Nash, or of natural history, could wish. The cosmos according to Hubble Expands like the soap of a bubble. Let's hope it's not closed, It would then be disposed To shrink to a point, and that's trouble. Harvard Physics Dept., 2007 (9) I've spent the last couple of years closely reading over 4,000 abstracts, and the bulk of those shot down by one or another editor or referee, have failed either to construct, or to spell out, the controls for their PROCEDURES or FINDINGS. I'd argue that there can be no overt CONCLUSIONS to an abstract absent the CONTROLS. Making the fifth subsection mandatory would, I believe, not only strengthen the intellectual, but also the emotive power of the abstract as a form of poetry. Adding a CONTROL requirement to the abstract would lead us to a short, five-member composition which would work like a limerick which has five lines in a metrical rhyming formula of aabba. So, if we use the limerick as a model, we now have room to insert those critical CONTROLS. But there's another reason to turn to the limerick as our example. Ever since Galileo, we've learned that good science can be subversive: it gives us news we didn't know, didn't want to know, or didn't want others to know. Often, the discoveries that scientists publish are like banana peels that trip the credulous: the world is round, man and monkey share a common ancestor, glucosamine is no good for arthritis. Science subverts belief. There was an Old Man who supposed, That the street door was partially closed; But some very large rats, Ate his coats and his hats, While that futile old gentleman dozed. There was an Old Person of Cromer, Who stood on one leg to read Homer; When he found he grew stiff, He jumped over the cliff, Which concluded that Person of Cromer. There was a young man from Japan Whose limericks never would scan When they said it was so He replied, “Yes, I know, But I always try to get as many words into the last line as ever I possibly can.” Anon., 1945 (4) Read a few abstracts in this issue of our journal, or in any other for that matter, and you'll recognize that the last lines of most abstracts seem to have been written by that young man from Japan. Whether unveiling a new knock-out mouse or dissecting a signaling cascade, today's author has squeezed into the last line of the abstract as many “implications” for cancer, inflammation, development, aging, psoriasis, and human diversity “as ever I possibly can.” The limerick packs laughs anatomical In space that is quite economical, But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. Anon., 1970 (12) A habit bizarre and unsavory Held the Bishop of Cambridge in slavery In spite of their howls He deflowered young owls Which he kept in an underground aviary Anon., 1970 (12) (A devout postdoc can replace “the Bishop of Cambridge” with “my thesis advisor.”) Said an ovum one night to a sperm You're a very attractive young germ Come join me my sweet Let our nuclei meet And in nine months we'll both come to term. Anon. (14) The abstracts we write contain evocative, memorable phrases as in: “The virus kills cells of lineage X,” or “The clone was obtained by nuclear transfer,” or “The gene remained silenced for three generations …” They scan, they're allusive, and they meet the standards of poetic speech as “tropes” (15). They also support John Barr's notion that “The difference between poetry and verse, then, is the difference between an explorer and a tour guide (16).” Our abstracts report the results of active exploration; we don't consult them for a cut-rate hotel. So if our abstracts are novel, well-crafted, and dripping with tropes, why pick the humble limerick as a poetic model rather than a more extensive form of poetic verse such as the sonnet. Isn't that fourteen-line blueprint, the stuff of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne a better model? I'd argue against the sonnet, later examples of which—as Hollander tells us—have declined into “explanations of myths or analytic meditations (15).” They ramble all over the place, throw in allusions to gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, flora and fauna of every persuasion and corner of the globe. They digress. Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? Abstracts that rank low on anyone's priority list adhere more closely to the sonnet than the limerick. They carry all the baggage of the longer verse form, with its unexplained references and puzzling botany. The authors are not the daughters of Time, but of Abbreviation. Instead of Diana, they revere MEK and ERK, instead of dyads, they spy NF?B, they're on the spoor not of the Hamadryad but of HOMA-IR. The Vulture is no threat, because PERK will save the day. And there are no CONTROLS. Stick to the limerick, you'll do better. The opinions expressed in editorials, essays, letters to the editor, and other articles comprising the Up Front section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FASEB or its constituent societies. The FASEB Journal welcomes all points of view and many voices. We look forward to hearing these in the form of op-ed pieces and/or letters from its readers addressed to [email protected].