Being How To Interpret Science Language

When the customer says ‘No!’ the sale begins. That’s a mantra of sales people, and it’s a daunting challenge to be creative about a critical situation. So: When the science writer says ‘No, I don’t understand this material at all,’ the science writing begins. A problem is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. It’s all in the attitude. Strange as it may seem, but a science writer can learn from a salesman about being creative. In fact, this is a 30-year-old idea; Elmer Leterman wrote his seminal book The Sale Begins When The Customer Says ‘No’ in 1977 yet (amazon.com). The lesson here? One never stops learning.

How does one interpret science language? Note that the two quoted paragraphs (in italics) below both come from the Executive Summary of ‘ICRISAT’s Vision and Strategy to 2015’ (ICRISAT.org). (I chose the material from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics since I’m studying this institute because it’s a model science agency in modern times; it’s an award-winning institute many times over; I like to give credit to whom credit is due; at the same time I’m enjoying trying to learn how it can relate to the poor farmers in the drylands of the tropics armed only with her 5 mandate crops: sweet sorghum, pearl millet, pigeon pea, chickpea, groundnut. And what have I found so far? ICRISAT relates to the farmers by relating to everyone: farmers, entrepreneurs, academe, local government, advocates, funding agencies, not to mention the media who must understand and interpret what the institute is doing. I am media, and my name is legion.

The language is technical English; as a science writer, you are supposed to translate it into popular English. But before you attempt to interpret it, let me give you some advice. First, read it once, fast. You don’t understand a thing? You’re running about average! Read again, this time thoroughly, word for word. Still don’t get it? You’re not supposed to – if you do, I salute you. But I expect you to read once, twice, thrice. Only then are you ready to get to the heart of it.

Now you try understanding it:

The onset of the Green Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies brought unprecedented increases in food production in favorable areas of the developing world. However, many regions in less-favored, rainfed areas such as the semi-arid tropics (SAT) have been bypassed. The SAT covers parts of 55 developing countries populated by about 1.4 billion people, of which 560 million (40%) are classified as poor, and 70% of these live in rural areas. The SAT has very short growing seasons, separated by very hot and dry periods. Natural soil fertility is very low and pest and disease pressure are intense. With persistent drought and land degradation as the overarching constraints, SAT farmers face perennial risks in improving their productivity and livelihoods.

So, can you explain that as a magazine writer or a columnist in a newspaper? Of course not. Just looking, I can’t do it myself.

So, what do you do? Here’s what you can do. First, get to a PC. (Don’t tell me you cannot be bothered; if you’re a writer, you’re either afraid, in awe, or an enemy of information technology, a Luddite.) Then type the text as you see it – never mind the italics, never mind the indents left and right – just type. Don’t ask someone to type it for you; you do it yourself – but not using a typewriter, for God’s sake. (One of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury, still uses the typewriter exclusively and rides the bicycle only, as far as I know – me, I ride only a bicycle and type exclusively on the keyboard of the Hilarios’ PC.) I do it all the time, been doing this for 20 years. Writing is a do-it-yourself kit, some assembly required. If you didn’t know it, typing is assembly required, as you will shortly see me demonstrate.

You know what happens when you type onscreen? There are two ways the words and their meanings are registered in your brain: by touch and by sight. You’re two times better off toward understanding your material this way. Some of the meanings of the words, sentences get into your head, even if you are not referring to the dictionary or encyclopedia for terms you don’t understand. (But it’s better if you do refer while reading when you meet a word you don’t understand; just right-click on the word. Me, more often, I refer to the dictionary and the Internet.)

After you have typed those two paragraphs above, read them once, twice, thrice. Still don’t understand much of it? Then it’s time for Enter to Enter. I’m assuming you have typed the text: For the first paragraph, position your cursor at the beginning letter of the second sentence and press Enter. Do the same with the third sentence, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. The paragraph should now look like this:

The onset of the Green Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies brought unprecedented increases in food production in favorable areas of the developing world.

However, many regions in less-favored, rainfed areas such as the semi-arid tropics (SAT) have been bypassed.

The SAT covers parts of 55 developing countries populated by about 1.4 billion people, of which 560 million (40%) are classified as poor, and 70% of these live in rural areas.

The SAT has very short growing seasons, separated by very hot and dry periods.

Natural soil fertility is very low and pest and disease pressure are intense.

With persistent drought and land degradation as the overarching constraints, SAT farmers face perennial risks in improving their productivity and livelihoods.

Read those sentences separately and you will begin to understand a little more. Now, type these (those in italics; again, you don’t have to format):

1st sentence: Green Revolution, sixties, seventies, unprecedented, increases, food production, favorable areas, developing world.

Even if you don’t understand ‘unprecedented’ (literally, ‘no precedent;’ it means this is the first time it happened), the meaning of that sentence has now become clearer to you, right?

2nd sentence: many regions, less-favored, rainfed areas, semi-arid tropics (SAT), bypassed.

Because you are the one who typed, you remember that in the first sentence, the words ‘favorable areas’ appear and, now, in the second sentence, ‘less-favored’ or unfavorable areas. (Does ‘less-favored’ refer to ‘rainfed areas?’ The sentence is not clear on that.)

3rd sentence: the SAT, 55 developing countries, 1.4 billion people, 560 million (40%) poor, 70% live in rural areas.

The semi-arid tropics: what does the term mean really? Check the Internet. (Oh yes, when I’m writing, I’m at the same time surfing the Internet searching, reading. It helps me think some more, and in a more relaxed manner – because what I don’t know, I can find out in a few seconds. Thank God for the Internet!)

You don’t need good grammar to understand the story told in the language of science. At this point in time, grammar is the least of your worries.

4th sentence: semi-arid tropics, short growing seasons, very hot and dry periods.

This is in fact a description of the semi-arid tropics. You don’t worry about short growing seasons because, of course, the crops that grow well there know all about short growing seasons, hot and dry days or weeks or months.

5th sentence: Natural, soil fertility, very low, pest pressure, disease pressure, intense.

At this point, I know that now you’re getting the point. I just checked the Internet for “pest pressure” and I got 3,130 English pages, but no one is explaining it. In other words, they are assuming the reader understands it – I think it refers to actual infestation (by an insect pest) or infection (by a disease-causing organism).

6th sentence: persistent drought, land degradation, constraints, SAT farmers, perennial risks, improving, productivity, livelihoods.

Many very long words, but you will admit that it’s all getting clearer and clearer.

(By the way, I’m using Word 2003 – not Word 2007 – in typing this. I like Word 2003 better because it’s Frank A Hilario-friendly as the other is not.)

And now, I will tell you there is another way of doing it without breaking up the paragraphs into individual sentences. My Way. I will now type the next paragraph, so now I have both:

The onset of the Green Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies brought unprecedented increases in food production in favorable areas of the developing world. However, many regions in less-favored, rainfed areas such as the semi-arid tropics (SAT) have been bypassed. The SAT covers parts of 55 developing countries populated by about 1.4 billion people, of which 560 million (40%) are classified as poor, and 70% of these live in rural areas. The SAT has very short growing seasons, separated by very hot and dry periods. Natural soil fertility is very low and pest and disease pressure are intense. With persistent drought and land degradation as the overarching constraints, SAT farmers face perennial risks in improving their productivity and livelihoods.

On the whole, agriculture in the SAT faces gigantic challenges due to the lack of technological and institutional innovations and the unfinished transformation of subsistence agriculture. Many of the measures associated with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) remain unimplemented. There is now an emerging pessimism among the world community that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may not be achieved by 2015, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Hence, the imperative of improving agriculture productivity using Integrated Genetic and Natural Resource Management (IGNRM) propelled by institutional innovations has become more compelling in the SAT.

Instead of breaking up the second paragraph, I will simply read it again, read the first paragraph again and see what catches my attention. I open my mind to any thought whatsoever – and that’s the key to this trick, how to open the mind – and the word poor jumps out of those forbidding paragraphs. So I read:

Poor soils from ‘unfavorable areas,’ ‘less-favored,’ ‘semi-arid,’ ‘fertility is very low’
Poor farms from ‘land degradation’
Poor water supply from ‘rainfed areas,’ ‘very hot and dry periods,’ ‘persistent drought’
Poor technology, poor support from ‘lack of technological and institutional innovations’
Poor farming from ‘unfinished transformation of subsistence agriculture’ – yields are unnecessarily low because of traditional farmers’ practices.

Looking at my list again, I can discern that the first three lines are statements of problems and the next two lines can be translated so that they become statements of solutions. Thus, ‘less-favored areas’ and ‘land degradation’ and ‘persistent drought’ among others are answered by introduction of technological and institutional innovations, and by modernizing agriculture. Easier said than done.

Going back to Elmer Leterman, ‘Dean of American Salesmanship,’ America’s first multi-billion dollar life insurance salesman, he famously said, ‘And remember, you have to be able to sell yourself successfully before you can take the next step – selling something for somebody else’ (elmergleterman.com). As a science writer, you have to be able to sell to yourself, that is, be the first to appreciate the subject matter at hand, before you will be able (and happy enough) to translate it in the language of others, of the many.

In case you haven’t noticed, in teaching you how to understand the technical language first before you translate it into the popular, I actually was teaching you how to study a difficult subject.

At this point, you’re only beginning! So, I hope you are enjoying the whole thing. The first secret of science writing is not to love what you do, writing, but to enjoy it. ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ says Steve Jobs, one of my idols (news-service.stanford.edu). Steve, that works with you as an innovator. What works with me as a science writer is to find love with what I’ve got, with what I’ve found. And to find love, I begin with joy.

So, choose joy. Love is immeasurable, so let’s leave it at that. Joy you can gauge, joy you can easily tell, joy you can easily infect someone with.

You can easily tell I’m enjoying all this. And exactly how does one choose joy? Ah, I can write another book on that!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 9:01 pm and is filed under creative photography, creative thinking, creative writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.