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5. Priority and prudence: the scientific letter
- University of Michigan Press
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Chapter 5 Priority and prudence: the scientific letter A dominant feature of disciplines towards the hard end of the epistemological spectrum is that new knowledge is typically seen as generated from what is known. Each new finding illuminates a little more of our ignorance and inexorably contributes to the eventual solution of the issue under study. Because knowledge is regarded as incremental and progressive in this way, there is a strong sense of making progress and, indeed, a routine expectation of constant momentum. In the fast-paced world of modern science, then, increasing specialisation and rapid knowledge growth have become the norm, and with this has come intense competition. Many fields of science are characterised by fierce rivalry as the rewards of reputation, including the funding to continue one's research, are often tied to establishing one's priority by reaching publication before others. One consequence of this is that genres have quickly emerged and changed in response to the social and intellectual activity they are part of. The letter genre is an excellent example of the generic and discoursal consequences of such social changes, and in this chapter I shall examine a feature of the interactions at the heart of its construction. Essentially these interactions involve establishing a plausible representation of consensual knowledge against which an appropriate claim for novelty can be presented. I shall show that this involves a careful balance of hedging and boosting, a command of the expression of rhetorical doubt and certainty. First, however, it might be helpful to outline briefly what the genre is and the role it plays in scientific communities. THE LETTER GENRE The scientific letter, 'squib' or 'quick report' is a feature of very fast-moving scientific specialisms such as physics, chemistry and microbiology. Here concern with innovation and speed of dissemination has led to the publication of separate letters journals which facilitate the rapid circulation of new and urgent findings by restricting the length and streamlining the review process. Typically less than four pages long, letters are often published within five to 85 86 Disciplinary Discourses eight weeks of initial submission, emphasising the anxiety of writers to establish priority for their research claims in a social environment that rewards first announcement. As Garvey (1979: 2) points out, 'being the first to make an important scientific contribution is the only way to obtain recognition (for one's) success'. These letters journals have largely evolved from letters-to-the-editor columns reporting work in progress in parent journals, and have rapidly become the primary forum for the dissemination of innovative work in the natural sciences. Publications such as Physical Review Letters, Chemistry Letters and Biotechnology Letters are now among the leading journals in their fields, accounting for a phenomenal output of work, often published monthly or even weekly, and generally containing over 40 papers in each issue. The popularity of this forum is such that it has not only replaced the research article as the main medium for announcing new breakthroughs, but has rapidly come to rival that genre in academic and institutional respectability. Publication of letters has become one of the major criteria for the promotion of young scientists in the USA, and submissions to such journals as Physical Review Letters is increasing by about 10 per cent per year (Passell, 1988). Letters differ from their more established cousin, the research article, in both scope and purpose. Lettersjournals emphasise the succinct reporting of new results and ideas that are of potential interest to the wider community. Europhysics Letters, for example, instructs authors to 'satisfY the specialist, yet remain understandable to researchers in other fields'. Journals which publish research articles, on the other hand, are targeted to highly specialised audiences and aim to certifY claims rather than to disseminate new and relatively untested ideas. As a result, letters tend to focus on what is currently fashionable and exciting in science while research articles have taken on a more archival function, containing detailed elaborations and proofs. As a previous editor of Physics Review Letters has observed: Letters journals swing back and forth from one field to another while the archival journals plod resolutely along, collecting and cataloging the accumulating wisdom of the scientific community. (Passell, 1988: 37) The increasing competitiveness of scientific communication has led to a certain blurring of features between these genres. Both now carry informative titles and promotional abstracts, foreground important claims, minimise methodology and background statements, and pack information into visuals. Letters, however, are pre-eminently declarations of findings...