miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2009

Despidamos el tema 2 con humor.

Soy de la opinión de que el humor nos hace más llevaderas las tareas y deberes, así, voy a poner una pequeña lista a modo de glosario para entender "en lenguaje coloquial" esas frases que reiteradamente aparecen en los textos científicos (in English, of course):

"IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN"... I didn't look up the original reference.

"A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT"... These data are practically meaningless.

"WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS"... An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.

"THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY"... The other results didn't make any sense.

"TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN"... This is the prettiest graph.

"THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT"... I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

"IN MY EXPERIENCE"... once

"IN CASE AFTER CASE"... Twice

"IN A SERIES OF CASES"... Thrice

"IT IS BELIEVED THAT"... I think.

"IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT"... A couple of others think so, too.

"CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE"... Wrong.

"ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS"... Rumor has it.

"A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS"... A wild guess.

"A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA"... Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

"IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENA OCCURS"... I don't understand it.

"AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES"... They don't understand it either.

"THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOTZ FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS"... Mr. Blotz did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.

"A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY"... A totally useless topic selected by my committee.

"IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD"... I quit.

2 comentarios:

  1. De estos glosarios para entender el auténtico significado de los papers hay unas cuantas por ahí. Son muy divertidas, entre otras cosas por lo que tienen de verdaderas. Esconden una de las causas de la sensación que comentaba Oscar: los artículos parece que esconden más que explican cómo llegar a los resultados.

    Por cierto, no despedimos el tema 2, profundizamos!!

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  2. Muy bueno... muy, muy bueno... Así se capta la esencia de un paper...jajajaja... Gran critica...

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