Here's the link to one of the most dry articles I've ever read in my life:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/science/earth/31conc.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=earth
Now, why, you ask, was it so very boring to read?
Answer: Jargon.
The article was loaded with it, and many times it didn't even attempt to explain these words to the reader. Maybe it's just me, but I think that terms like "aggregate" (in the context of rock,) "carbon sequestration,""isocyanates," and "blast-furnace slag" aren't exactly used in daily conversation by people other than chemists and/or concrete connoisseurs. I think they should be defined for people like me who care about the environment and what materials can harm the environment but who do not know that much about chemistry at all.
The terms also made the article dull to read simply because it is not interesting reading something that isn't easy to understand. When it comes to novels or schoolbooks, yes, a little mental work is great. But when I read a newspaper article (and this article will be printed in the paper tomorrow, according to a small footnote on the online edition) I want to get straight to the point and not have to shift through words I don't understand.
To give the poor reporter (Henry Fountain) some credit though, he did attempt to define some of the words he used. For example, I had no idea that "pozzolans" is the proper term to describe "reactive materials that help make the concrete stronger." This could come in handy some day.
I also liked that he attempted to use the analogy of a fruitcake in order to explain what happened to the concrete when certain materials or ingredients were used to make it. Fountain also did well when attempting to describe the sheer amount of concrete that is made and used by giving us things to compare the amount to.
Most of these good qualities, however, were relegated to the beginning of the article, and towards the middle I found myself getting distracted by that silly jargon.
However, Fountain did use some very good sources who obviously knew what they were talking about and were experts in their field. But again, they did a poor job at explaining what they knew in layman's terms.
So yes, it was an informative article, but it wasn't as well-written as it could have been, in my opinion.
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How would the author have communicated the same information while not using jargon? I agree with you that the jargon made the article very dry and bland, but are there other words he could have used in place of the loaded ones he did use? Or are those the only words to describe what he was trying to describe?
ReplyDeleteI think so many environmental articles are so scientific the average person gets frustrated and confused, so they don't read those articles. I think that that is a big part of why it has taken so long to generate an interest in it. If the facts were conveyed in a simpler method (and like Emily alluded to it WOULD be difficult, but it is their job) then a greater public concern could be generated.
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was a problem wasn't the jargon itself, but rather the lack of definitions of that jargon. The average non-chemist does not know what something like "carbon sequestration" is!
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