Confusing Language in Psychological Research? Here’s Why

By Garrett O.

Most people that have read a scientific journal article can probably relate to the confusion that arises when trying to understand the details. Why is the content of important scientific research so hard to understand? This is a question with many possible answers. The technical term for this type of writing is “official style.” Official style is often strung with complex and winding sentences, high reading levels, increased punctuation, and the use of passive voice. Many readers are able to identify official style writing without even knowing its defining characteristics.

“Stress and Personality,” by authors D. Lečić Toševski, O. Vukovic, and J. Stepanovic is a perfect example of how the official style is used in psychological research papers. It was originally published to Psychiatriki, which is a psychiatric-based publisher located in Greece. Psychiatriki was created by the Hellenic American Psychiatric Association to give Greek Psychiatrists a tool to exchange professional resources. According to their website, the journal’s intended use is for anything from scientific exchanges to professional aspirations. This means that the article was written specifically for a niche audience. Picking apart the language of the article makes this even more clear. Psychiatrists often pass research to their peers to help treat patients more effectively. “Stress and Personality” could potentially help a psychiatrist give a more accurate diagnosis to a patient.

              The article begins with a sentence reading: “Stress is an adaptation reaction of living organisms in response to internal or external threats of homeostasis.” This sentence develops the intended audience very quickly. Unless the reader is scientifically educated already, they might wonder what internal threats or homeostasis might mean. Essentially, this sentence is saying: “The reason we feel stress is because our mind is trying to protect our well-being.” The sentence in the original article must be decoded to uncover the meaning. So, what is the difference between the example sentence and the one from the original article? Content wise, there is almost no difference. There are many potential reasons for why the authors might be writing like this, but the most pressing one is to deny access. The niche community of psychiatrists that consult this information are one of the few that can easily understand it. The links between stress and personality type could be useful information for many people, regardless of their reading and education levels. However, more people poking and prodding at the research could be a very bad day for an author who doesn’t want to be challenged on their findings. On the same token, having medical and psychological discoveries easily available to the public could strain the level of trust between a patient and their doctor. With all the negatives that come with “coded language,” it is probably beneficial that not everyone can understand all medical terminology. It is proven that a certified surgeon and therapist can do surgery and aid in mental health better than someone who isn’t fully educated in the field.

              Another official style tool that is frequently seen in the article is the use of passive voice. When reading this article and other articles that use the official style, it sometimes feels like the information is simply “as-is.” There are no action verbs, only anticlimactic facts laid out without any ownership. Some examples from the article include: “Studies have recorded considerable consistency in coping strategies…” and, “Positive affect has been associated with positive reappraisal…” It seems like the authors are citing someone else’s work, which is not the case. Then what is the purpose of this language? The most obvious answer is to gain credibility. If I were to say, “I just discovered a new nutrient in this broccoli,” I would probably seem less trustworthy than if I said, “A new nutrient has been discovered in broccoli.” I am not a scientist, nor do I know the slightest about the nutrient content of broccoli, but I am automatically more credible when conveying information rather than claiming it. In addition to this, passive voice and third person language serve more than just this purpose. They also close many loopholes that might be left dangling in the claims. For example, people might attack my faulty research if I actively take ownership in it, but not if I just stated that “Findings indicate a new broccoli nutrient.” A researcher lacking confidence in their claims or an author seeking a position of trust and authority are both great candidates for the use of official style.

              With the individual pieces of the official style dissected, it is slightly easier to understand why an author would choose to adopt it. This does not mean that the reasoning isn't frustrating at times. If an individual wants to learn more about a specific topic, how is it fair that access is essentially denied? Should an individual have to take advanced reading and writing courses just to understand a summary of research? Many college students that have learned to decipher the official style were probably never taught it in the first place—at least not right away. In my own college experience, learning how to read official style was mostly done using the Google search bar. There are drastic shifts in the language of textbooks from high school to college and failing to become accustomed to them could greatly affect understanding. The ability to learn new information is a “right” in the United States, yet information is being carefully masked by the language itself.

Having important information easily understandable should be a right for everyone. Communities with low socioeconomic status aren’t only more prone to mental health disorders, but they have lower rates of education. This demonstrates how important it is for psychological resources to be easily accessible. Legally binding documents such as lease and privacy agreements can also exploit vulnerable populations. I would argue that there is a time and place for the “official style,” but plain style writing should be accessible when the information could help large groups of people.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Olivera-Vukovic-2/publication/221772331_Stress_and_Personality/links/02e7e52b5fa1c11155000000/Stress-and-Personality.pdf#page=20

Official Style in Scientific Research--Why?

 By Olivia Revels

Scientific research articles are known for being long, confusing, and credible- just like the official style is at first glance.  The text I am exploring is a scientific research article on epithelial ovarian cancer called Ovarian Cancer.  I figured I would have luck finding the official style being used in this realm of texts and I was quickly proven correct.  I found this specific article in the online Science Direct database; however, this article was also published in The Lancet, a print medical journal in 2014.  The authors of the article all stemmed from cancer institutes or centers for cancer research and follows the exact general pattern any other scientific research paper would.  All these factors together make this article a perfect opportunity for the official style to prosper and is commonly accepted in this genre of texts.  But I want to explore how the official style is used, despite the claim that writing in science should be direct and concise, when the official style has only made this article more complex, does not establish credibility that was not already present and restricts readability in academic/scholarly texts like this one. 

Ovarian Cancer has the official style throughout it.  One strategy that is used is having complex and long sentences.  This can be seen with the average words per sentence being 24.51 and an example sentence with 39 words is:

Findings of epidemiological studies have shown that the risk of ovarian cancer is reduced by states of anovulation, such as pregnancy or the use of oral contraception; or through tubal ligation-reduced reflux of menstrual products onto the ovary. (1376)

 This sentence has a complex vocabulary and grammar structure, like the use of a semicolon.  The vocabulary used has specific medical terminology, or jargon, like platinum-based cytotoxic chemotherapy, antiangiogenic drugs, palliation, stromal tumours, endometriosis, supraphysiological ovarian stimulation, etc.  These limit who is able to understand the jargon and who has that level of education, further excluding a vast majority of readers from this text. 

After looking in the text a little, now we need to understand the motives of the publishers for wanting a work like this made and how it establishes credibility.  The original publisher, The Lancet, is an “independent, international general medical journal” that has been in business since 1823 that is recognized worldwide for its longstanding and incredible scientific research.  The Lancet’s goal is to “make science widely available so that medicine can serve, and transform society, and positively impact the lives of people.”  We can clearly see that an article on the deadliest form of gynecological cancer would fit the bill for this medical journal’s interests and representation.  Already, the article has not been read nor its use of official style established credibility, and yet, we have credibility already completely covered due to the reputation and peer-reviewed nature of this journal. 

Not to mention that the authors of the article are all experts in the field of ovarian cancer.  Professor Gordon Jayson has a PhD in medicine and oncology, and he is currently teaching at the University of Oxford.  He researches ovarian cancer for the Christie NHS Foundation Trust that is an international foundation working to cure cancer.    Another author, Elise Kohn, is a practicing physician (MD) and researcher that works for the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute in the U.S.  The next author, Henry Kitchener, also is a practicing physician (MD) and is a professor at the University of Manchester.  He researches ovarian cancer at the Institute of Cancer Studies in the United Kingdom.  The last author, Jonathan Ledermann, is a practicing physician (MD), an affiliate of the UCL Cancer Institute, and a professor at the University College London.   After all this credibility being set, why would official style still be used if not to establish credibility? 

This then begs the question of who the audience of this article is to see why official style is still being used.  Ovarian cancer uses jargon, long and complex sentence structures, prepositional phrases, coordination, and passive voice.  All of these are official style strategies.  And all these strategies used helped make the article longer, more difficult to read, more formal, and- most importantly- more official.  When considering the entirety of this article’s use of official style strategies, we see an increase in how much harder it becomes to understand and how that restricts its access to readers. 

To understand the complex sentences and grammar tools used, someone would need to at least be able to read at a college level.   Then, when we add in all the specific and jargonistic medical terminology from diseases, treatments, biological/cellular processes and structures, we limit the audience to a super small group of individuals.  These people include other scientific researchers in this same field, medical professionals like physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners also in this field, or someone in the general public that happens to be well-versed on epithelial ovarian cancer.  Based on these requirements, very little of the population will want to read this and can understand this article.  So, why is official style being used if the goal of The Lancet is “to make science widely available,” when it has only excluded more and more readers? 

Other strategies of the official style present are the use of the passive voice throughout since no personal pronouns are ever used.  A sentence that shows the passive voice is, “The management of epithelial ovarian cancer needs expertise in surgery, chemotherapy, imaging, histopathology, and palliation; specialist multidisciplinary teamwork is essential to achieve optimum outcomes” (1376).  We see that there is no active voice in this sentence since the subject is “the management” and not an individual or object but an action itself.  There are also prepositional phrases sprinkled throughout the article like “with”, “is changing”, “in which there has been a decreasing”, “within”, etc.  Then, there is also the use of coordination with conjunctions like “and”, “but”, “although”, “if”, “however” and “for”.  The strategies listed all create longer and more complex sentences in this article as a tool of the official style, which results in a much more difficult to understand text.  This then leads to less readers going to the trouble of understanding this text. 

In conclusion, I am confused as to what the purpose of official style being used is for.  It has not helped in establishing credibility other than showing off fancy writing and it has not increased reader turnout of this article.  Yet, it persists here and in a vast majority of other scientific research articles in the same genre of academic/scholarly texts.  It could be to further prove how smart and reliable the authors and/or publisher of this article are, or it could have been the only way for peer-reviewers to approve and accept this research if the authors used this style of writing.  If that is the case, then it is something to consider ethically that only one style of writing is acceptable despite the information needing to be read and understood by as many people as possible.  This then brings up more questions regarding how official style is being used in other scientific articles to possibly intentionally exclude readers, similar to how certain pharmaceutical companies sell their products.  But lastly, why do you think the official style is being used in this article when it so clearly does not need to be?