More Academic Meanings...
The following came from:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/8_2.html#subindex
A brief guide to Scientific literature
The following phrases, frequently found in technical writings, are defined
below for your enlightenment.
Phrase Translation
It has been long known...............I haven't bothered to check the references
It is known..........................I believe
It is believed.......................I think
It is generally believed.............My collegues and I think
There has been some discussion.......Nobody agrees with me
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
Some samples were chosen for study...The others didn't make sense
Typical results are shown............The best results are shown
Correct within order of magnitude....Wrong
The values were obtained empirically.The values were obtained by accident
The results are inconclusive.........The results seem to disprove my hypothesis
Additional work is required..........Someone else can work out the details
It might be argued that..............I have a good answer to this objection
The investigations proved rewarding..My grant has been renewed
From: eridani#NoSpam.scn.org (Martha K. Koester)
Synthesised according to.............Purchased from Sigma
standard protocols
Thanks to Joe Blow for expert........Thanks to Joe Blow for doing
technical assistance and Jane all the work and Jane Doe for
Doe for valuable discussion. telling me what it meant.
From: neve#NoSpam.up.univ-mrs.fr (Gabriel NEVE)
While it has not been possible.......The experiments didn't work out,
to provide definite answers to but I figured I could at least
these questions. get a publication out of it.
Mus musculus domesticus..............Mus musculus domesticus
was chosen as especially suitable to is a lovely animal
test this hypothesis. which is easy to study in
the lab.
Accidentally strained during.........dropped on the floor
mounting
Handled with extreme care............not dropped on the floor
throughout the experiments
Although some detail has been........It is impossible to tell from the
lost in reproduction, it is clear original micrograph.
from the original 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
The most reliable values are..........Jones was a student of mine.
those of Jones.
It is suggested that...
It is believed that... I think that...
It may be that...
It is generally believed that........A couple of other guys think so too.
It is clear that much additional.....I don't understand it.
work will be required before
a complete understanding...
Unfortunately, a quantitative........Neither does anybody else.
theory to account for these effects
has not been formulated.
It is hoped that this work will......This paper isn't very good, but
stimulate further work in the field. neither are any of the others in
this miserable subject.
High purity..........................Composition unknown except for
Very high purity the exaggerated claims of the
suppliers
A fiducial reference line on.........A scratch.
the specimen...
[adapted by Dominic Semple and Gabriel Neve from 'A glossary for research
reports' by C.D. Graham, Jr., Metal Progress Vol 71, No. 5, 1957, and
Technology Review, January 1977]
And the last one from mammalogists :
Arvicola voles were found as The radio-traking collars we've
especially suitable to investigate got are too big for Microtus
this interesting ecological problem vole species.
From: "Dennis Davis"
"A definite trend is evident"... These data are practically meaningless.
"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...
etc. (see above)
"A highly significant area for exploratory study"... A totally useless
topic selected by my committee.
posted by qpop @ 8:01 am
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