As a science major, the official style seems to be
everywhere. I have seen multiple times in each of my science classes in the
last four years of school here at UWL. Scientific writing seems to be a major branch
of the official style, along with political and law related topics. After
reading a variety of scientific texts and writing some of my own, I have come
to the conclusion that the official style is necessary in this kind of writing.
My argument stems from the fact that technical terms and larger words and
phrases must be used to deliver the necessary information to the readers.
I based my Biology Capstone
research project on a cancer-causing gene mutation and took the course Biology
of Cancer. After these courses, I became interested in cancer research and
possible risk factors. I chose to
analyze a scientific article titled “Identification and Management of Women
With BRCA Mutation or Hereditary Predisposition for Breast and Ovarian Cancer.”
It was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a peer reviewed journal
focused in general and internal medicine, by Sandhya Pruthi, M.D. Mayo Clinic Proceedings is an
internationally ranked medical journal, number 12 out of 160 journals.
According to the Mayo Clinic website, articles can focus on clinical and
laboratory medicine, health care policy and economics, medical education and
ethics, and other related topics. Dr. Pruthi works as a researcher at the
Rochester, Minnesota location of Mayo Clinic. Her research is focused around
women at increased risk of breast cancer, the topic of the article that I have
chosen. She has led nationwide research several times in attempt to further
develop the knowledge of breast cancer and develop possible diagnosis
strategies and treatment options. This article has been widely cited by other
researchers, specifically 105 times in articles that can be accessed through
the Elsevier database.
We have
learned that the official style isn’t just one specific format. There are a
multitude of strategies that may or may not be used in the official style. This
is a reason that there is a broad variety in subject matter that utilizes the
official style. My chosen article includes a variety of key strategies that are
typical of official style. This article includes almost all of the nine
sentence combining strategies that we have talked about. The few that are most
frequently used are relative phrases, appositives, and prepositional phrases.
The use of these strategies allows for the lengthening of sentences, one of the
key aspects of the official style. This article also includes the use of lists
and statistics quite frequently.
“In the United States in 2009, there
were approximately 192,370 new cases of breast cancer and 21,550 new cases of
ovarian cancer. That year, breast cancer deaths were estimated at 40,170 and
ovarian cancer deaths at 14,600. Approximately 80% of breast and 90% of ovarian
cancer cases are thought to be sporadic with no associated family history.
Multifactorial familial risk accounts for approximately 10% to 15% of breast
cancer. In the future, testable panels of genetic variants likely will combine
to subtly alter risk. Hereditary breast cancer—cancer attributable to a single
hereditary gene mutation in either BRCA1 or BRCA2—accounts for approximately 5%
of breast cancer cases, characteristically occurring before age 50 years.
Approximately 4% to 11% of ovarian cancer is attributable to a germline
mutation, with the greatest proportions in cancers diagnosed before age 50
years.3 An estimated 1 in 300 to 1 in 800 US individuals are BRCA carriers (1
in 50 individuals with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage).”
This passage includes each of the
tactics mentioned prior. There is an overload of statistics, enough to make an
average person simply skip over the passage. Almost every sentence in this
passage has a prepositional phrase. This passage supports the argument the use
of technical terms and larger words is necessary. You can also see the use of
appositives, which attempts to further explain the important topics that are
seen throughout the rest of the article. This author, along with many other scientific
authors, does a very good job of including any necessary explanations of
techniques or medical diagnoses used throughout the article. According to
readability calculators, appositives make the reading more difficult by adding
too much length to a sentence, but in this case, I feel that it makes to
article more readable. There are very few, if any, terms in this passage that
could be simplified or altered to increase readability without jeopardizing the
content and message that the author is discussing.
It is very important to
understand the audience in any style of writing, but especially in scientific
writing. Many of the people that would disagree with my argument would state
the fact that an average person may want to understand more about this topic. The
specific article that I chose is about a fairly common gene mutation that
increases breast and ovarian cancer risk to 80%. Anyone can have the mutation,
so the average person should be able to learn about it. I completely agree with
this counterargument. I would feel the same way if I had this gene or any other
medical condition. I still feel that it is necessary to have all of the correct
terminology included in articles. It’s not easy to simplify a medical condition
and may seem less credible without the proper terminology. Many of the journal
articles are written to inform other scientists and researchers and not for the
average layperson. Their intended audience are people with similar levels of
education so they don’t need to write in a simpler way. There are many other ways
for the average person to access medical information that they can understand.
It is assumed that the official
style makes writings unnecessarily difficult to read, hence the relatively low
readability scores that most articles receive. This article received a 9.84
Flesch Reading Ease score and requires a person to be educated through about
the 20th grade level to understand it. Obviously, not many people
have 20 years of formal education and I certainly don’t, but this article
doesn’t seem to be as advanced as the statistics show. Scientific writings
would be difficult for anyone to read if you don’t have prior knowledge about
the topic at hand. An author doesn’t begin writing an article with the
intention of limiting the audience. Nobody sits down to write and thinks, “I am
going write this article so the readability is extremely low.” The terminology
that must be included in the articles is what lowers readability. Names of diseases
or body parts or genes being studied or the techniques used for that research
can’t be changed or simplified. They may make an article more difficult to read
and more official, but there isn’t anything the author can do to change that. I
feel that even scientific articles that are meant to try to simplify a topic
still include strategies that fall into the official style. There just isn’t
any way to avoid it. There are obviously limitations to writing in the official
style, the largest one being limited access to a large audience. This doesn’t
make the official style a bad thing. As I have pointed out, it is sometimes
unavoidable and necessary in writing. However, there are subjects and articles
that can stray away from the bounds of the official style.
Kelsie K.
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