A Brief Guide to Scientific Literature

The following phrases, frequently found in technical writings, are defined below for your enlightenment.
[partly adapted from 'A glossary for research reports' by C. D. Graham, J r., Metal Progress 1957, 71, 75]

Phrase Translation
It has long been known I haven't bothered to look up the original reference
It is known I believe
It is believed
It is suggested
It may be
I think
It is generally believed My colleagues and I think
It can be shown Take my word for it
It is proven It agrees with something mathematical
Of great theoretical importance I find it interesting
Of great practical importance This justifies my employment
Of great historical importance This ought to make me famous
A highly significant area for exploratory study A totally useless topic selected by my committee
The WPb system was chosen as especially suitable to
show the predicted behavior
The fellow in the next lab had some already made up
Mus musculus domesticus was chosen as especially
suitable to test this hypothesis
Mus musculus domesticus is a lovely animal which is
easy to study in the lab
Arvicola voles were found as especially suitable to
investigate this interesting ecological problem
The radio-tracking collars we've got are too big for
Microtus vole species
Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study
The results on the others didnt make sense and were
ignored
Synthesized according to standard protocols Purchased from Sigma
Stringent controls were implemented My advisor was watching
Handled with extreme care throughout the experiments Not dropped on the floor
Accidentally strained during mounting
The second sample was not used
Dropped on the floor
Results obtained with the second sample must be
interpreted with caution
Dropped it on the floor but managed to scoop most of
it up
High purity
Very high purity
Extremely high purity
Super purity
Spectroscopically pure
Composition unknown except for the exaggerated
claims of the supplier
The material is slightly toxic All the injected animals died
A fiducial reference line on the specimen A scratch
Early experiments were inconclusive I completely goofed up for six months
The values were obtained empirically The values were obtained by accident
Data not shown Data not interpretable
Typical results are shown The best results are shown
The average value A composite of the experiments that worked
A line of best fit was drawn using least-squares
regression
I drew it by hand
A non-linear relationship was found I drew it by hand, and I didnt use a ruler
A careful analysis of obtained data
Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked
over a glass of beer
A definite trend is evident These data are practically meaningless
Phrase Translation
Consistent with
It is, but on the one-in-a-million chance it isnt, Ill get
sued
The agreement with the predicted curve is...
excellent
good
satisfactory
fair
as good as could be expected
The agreement with the predicted curve is...
fair
poor
doubtful
imaginary
non-existent
Correct within an order of magnitude Wrong
In my experience Once
In case after case Twice
In a series of cases Three times
Presumably at longer times I didn't take the time to find out
The most reliable values are those of J ones J ones was a student of mine
We omit the details We omit the proof
Taken together, our results show
J ust read the abstract and discussion; you can skip the
results section
According to statistical analysis Rumor has it
A statistically-oriented projection of the significance
of these findings
A wild guess
It can be verified It wont be verified
It is obvious I cant see it and neither can you
It is not unreasonable to assume If you believe this, youll believe anything
Although some detail has been lost in reproduction, it
is clear from the original micrograph
It is impossible to tell from the original micrograph
The results are inconclusive The results seem to disprove my hypothesis
There has been some discussion Nobody agrees with me
It might be argued that
I have such a good answer to this objection that I shall
now raise it
Additional work is required Someone else can work out the details
It is clear that much additional work will be required
before a complete understanding
I don't understand it
Unfortunately, a quantitative theory to account for
these effects has not been formulated
Neither does anybody else
After additional study by my colleagues They didnt understand it, either
Our findings extend upon
Someone else published before us, but we had put a lot
of work into this
While it has not been possible to provide definite
answers to these questions
The experiments didn't work out, but I figured I could
at least get a publication out of it
These results will be in a subsequent report I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded
The investigations proved rewarding My grant has been renewed
It is hoped that this work will stimulate further work in
the field
This paper isn't very good, but neither are any of the
others in this miserable subject
Thanks are due to J oe Glotz for assistance with the
experiments and to J ohn Doe for valuable
discussions
Glotz did the work, and Doe explained what it meant
This research was supported by a grant from I wonder if the taxpayers know theyre paying for this