A Guide to Effective Scientific Communication

Phrase	Translation
It has long been known	I haven't bothered to look up the reference
It is believed	I think
It is generally believed	A couple of guys think so too
It is not unreasonable to assume	If you believe this, you'll believe anything
Of great theoretical importance	I find it kind of interesting
Of great practical importance	I can get some mileage out of it
Typical results are shown	The best results are shown
3 samples were choosen for further study	The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them
The 4 hour sample was not studied	I dropped it on the floor
The 4 hour determination may not be significant	I dropped it on the floor, but scooped most of it up
The significance of these results is unclear	Look at the pretty artifact is unclear
It has not been possible to provide definitive answers	The experiment was negative, but at least I can publish the data somewhere
Correct within an order of magnitude	Wrong
It might be argued that	I have such a good answer for this objection that I shall now raise it
Much additional work will be required	This paper is not very good, but neither is that of anyone else
These investigations proved highly rewarding	My grant is going to be renewed
It has long been known that...	I haven't bothered to look up the original reference
...of great theoretical and practical importance	...interesting to me
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.
The W-Pb system was chosen as especially suitable to show the predicted behavior...	The fellow in the next lab had some already made up
High purity... Very high purity... Extremely high purity... Super-purity... Spectroscopically pure...	Composition unknown except for the exaggerated claims of the supplier
A fiducial reference line...	A scratch
Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study...	The results of the others didn't make sense and were ignored...
...handled with extreme care during the experiments	...not dropped on the floor
Typical results are shown...	The best results are shown...
Although some detail has been lost in reproduction, it is clear from the original micrograph that...	It is impossible to tell from the micrograph
Presumably at longer times...	I didn't take the time to find out
The agreement with the predicted curve is excellent	fair
good	poor
satisfactory	doubtful
fair	imaginary
...as good as could be expected	non-existent
These results will be reported at a later date	I might get around to this sometime
The most reliable values are those of Jones	He was a student of mine
It is suggested that... It is believed that... It may be that...	I think...
It is generally believed that....	I have such a good objection to this answer that I shall now raise it.
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
Correct within an order of magnitude	Wrong
It is to be hoped that this work will stimulate further work in the field	This paper isn't very good but neither are any of the others on this miserable subject
Thanks are due to Joe Glotz for assistance with the experiments and to John Doe for valuable discussions.	Glotz did the work and Doe explained what it meant.