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Investigative Grammar
0022-5347/89/1424-1142$02.00/0 THE JOURNAL OF UROLOGY Copyright© 1989 by AMERICAN UROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, INC.
Vol. 142, October
Printed in U.S.A.
INVESTIGATIVE GRAMMAR What a welter of personal motives there are for writing scientific papers! Intellectual zeal, academic or institutional preferment, duty, honor or obligation, profit, delusion, image enhancement, habit (or addiction), the thrill of the chase, the extreme pleasure of maintaining a lively correspondence with the shell documents in an editorial office's word processorcome to think of it, who knows how many reasons there are and who has time to count and organize them all? Thanks to IMRAD, the authors' motives have little bearing on the finished product. Possibly even the authors' results have little bearing on the finished product. IMRAD has a leveling effect on some papers and an elevating effect on others. IMRAD is an equalizer between the author for whom words flow in a natural torrent and the author whose word-flow seems to have been rechanneled and dammed for flood control purposes. IMRAD acts as a higher organizing and regulating principle. IMRAD stands for Introduction, Methods, Results And Discussion. IMRAD is not a very precise acronym. A fully expanded acronym for the standard format would be TAIMAMRDAR, standing for Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods And Materials, Results, Discussion And References. However, T AIMAMRDAR would be hard to remember and dangerous to pronounce. IMRAD, on the other hand, has considerable flair as a word. IMRAD sounds like the name of a Nordic or Vedic god; appropriately so, since IMRAD can shape substance out of the void and command obedience and sacrifice. IMRAD is supposed to be a model, a template, a formula, a particular way of giving shape to certain kinds of writing, a servant rather than a master. However, in writing, techniques have a way of getting out of hand. The format becomes the message. The purpose behind IMRAD is not to reduce science writing to the level of stamping out identical sheets of baked goods with a cookie cutter. The purpose is to streamline informationgiving and information-getting for both author and audience. No matter why they are written, technical papers are 'words in harness.' Each element of the IMRAD writing formula has a particular organizational function, as if the elements of a study and the elements of reporting a study were being sorted into a series of appropriately labelled baskets. Even a weak writer can learn to write an acceptable IMRAD paper. It would be possible to draw up a checklist and an outline form with blanks, and fill in the blanks and check the result against the checklist. Similarly, a reader can find out almost at a glance whether he wants to see all or just part of an IMRAD paper, and which part, and turn straight to the part he needs without reference to the rest. In effect, the reader can take something from just one of the 'baskets.' Or, to switch metaphors, IMRAD papers come pre-digested. However, IMRAD transcends its uses as a tool and takes on metaphysical attributes. IMRAD is part mystique. An author can plug the necessary elements into IMRAD from any source or combination of sources, for any reason or combination of reasons, and the result will carry the same superficial authority as any other IMRAD manuscript to the casual eye. In a way, IMRAD is a little too easy to use.
The problem is not the clever and deceptive forger of results who can be found in articles about 'scientific fraud' in the popular press. The IMRAD template can easily be used to give superficial credibility to a spurious investigator. However, deliberate fraud, after all, is just another way to be wrong-one of many ways to be wrong, one of the rarer ways and maybe no more heinous than incompetence or ignorance. The problem with IMRAD might be that it nurtures mediocrity unnecessarily. Of course mediocrity needs to be amply rewarded. Otherwise rewards would be thin on the ground, and things in general would tend to dry up. However, nearly any collective enterprize will adjust itself around the median degree of ability, around the worker whose motives are unextraordinary and whose results are fully in context with all the other results. No thought needs to be wasted on how to promote averageness successfully. The thing takes care of itself. The question is whether IMRAD has a destructive effect on certain kinds of superior work. Arguably it does. We see plenty of 'LPU' or 'Least Publishable Unit' papers, in which a fullscale study is chopped into 'least-publishable' bits. We also see plenty of so-called 'Baloney Science' where a long-term study take serial form and appears in slices, no one of which means much by itself. IMRAD facilitates those kinds of papers, since each can be stamped into the semblance of fullness on the IMRAD template and dealt out to journals like a hand of cards. Does this ever cause authors to tease their own best work into fragments? Does the increased volume of LPU-type manuscripts clog the journal system and hinder the publication of superior work through sheer crowding? Further, some valuable work may not be IMRAD-shaped, and hammering it into that shape may cost something in terms of intelligibility. Occasionally, authors who think they are complaining about the way their papers were reviewed, or about the unwelcome revisions that were requested, are actually complaining about IMRAD itself. The standard format emphasizes redescription of methods that may have been described a hundred times before, and deemphasizes any account of why those methods were chosen. IMRAD is designed to display 'results' prominently, but woe betide the manipulation that had ambiguous results. IMRAD was designed as a model for writing about physical events which can be plainly demonstrated in terms of cause and effect. Not all research topics are so well understood. Some are frank mysteries. The authors still must employ IMRAD, though the results of using the information-dense, context-poor IMRAD format may be disastrous to intelligibility when the data are few and the context is rich. When these circumstances claim a victim, so to speak, it is interesting that the victim never blames IMRAD. He always blames the reviewers or the editors. Well, it is intellectually difficult and emotionally unsatisfactory to be angry at a discarnate idea anyway.
1142
Gary Mawyer Editorial Assistant
Vol. 142, October
Printed in U.S.A.
INVESTIGATIVE GRAMMAR What a welter of personal motives there are for writing scientific papers! Intellectual zeal, academic or institutional preferment, duty, honor or obligation, profit, delusion, image enhancement, habit (or addiction), the thrill of the chase, the extreme pleasure of maintaining a lively correspondence with the shell documents in an editorial office's word processorcome to think of it, who knows how many reasons there are and who has time to count and organize them all? Thanks to IMRAD, the authors' motives have little bearing on the finished product. Possibly even the authors' results have little bearing on the finished product. IMRAD has a leveling effect on some papers and an elevating effect on others. IMRAD is an equalizer between the author for whom words flow in a natural torrent and the author whose word-flow seems to have been rechanneled and dammed for flood control purposes. IMRAD acts as a higher organizing and regulating principle. IMRAD stands for Introduction, Methods, Results And Discussion. IMRAD is not a very precise acronym. A fully expanded acronym for the standard format would be TAIMAMRDAR, standing for Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods And Materials, Results, Discussion And References. However, T AIMAMRDAR would be hard to remember and dangerous to pronounce. IMRAD, on the other hand, has considerable flair as a word. IMRAD sounds like the name of a Nordic or Vedic god; appropriately so, since IMRAD can shape substance out of the void and command obedience and sacrifice. IMRAD is supposed to be a model, a template, a formula, a particular way of giving shape to certain kinds of writing, a servant rather than a master. However, in writing, techniques have a way of getting out of hand. The format becomes the message. The purpose behind IMRAD is not to reduce science writing to the level of stamping out identical sheets of baked goods with a cookie cutter. The purpose is to streamline informationgiving and information-getting for both author and audience. No matter why they are written, technical papers are 'words in harness.' Each element of the IMRAD writing formula has a particular organizational function, as if the elements of a study and the elements of reporting a study were being sorted into a series of appropriately labelled baskets. Even a weak writer can learn to write an acceptable IMRAD paper. It would be possible to draw up a checklist and an outline form with blanks, and fill in the blanks and check the result against the checklist. Similarly, a reader can find out almost at a glance whether he wants to see all or just part of an IMRAD paper, and which part, and turn straight to the part he needs without reference to the rest. In effect, the reader can take something from just one of the 'baskets.' Or, to switch metaphors, IMRAD papers come pre-digested. However, IMRAD transcends its uses as a tool and takes on metaphysical attributes. IMRAD is part mystique. An author can plug the necessary elements into IMRAD from any source or combination of sources, for any reason or combination of reasons, and the result will carry the same superficial authority as any other IMRAD manuscript to the casual eye. In a way, IMRAD is a little too easy to use.
The problem is not the clever and deceptive forger of results who can be found in articles about 'scientific fraud' in the popular press. The IMRAD template can easily be used to give superficial credibility to a spurious investigator. However, deliberate fraud, after all, is just another way to be wrong-one of many ways to be wrong, one of the rarer ways and maybe no more heinous than incompetence or ignorance. The problem with IMRAD might be that it nurtures mediocrity unnecessarily. Of course mediocrity needs to be amply rewarded. Otherwise rewards would be thin on the ground, and things in general would tend to dry up. However, nearly any collective enterprize will adjust itself around the median degree of ability, around the worker whose motives are unextraordinary and whose results are fully in context with all the other results. No thought needs to be wasted on how to promote averageness successfully. The thing takes care of itself. The question is whether IMRAD has a destructive effect on certain kinds of superior work. Arguably it does. We see plenty of 'LPU' or 'Least Publishable Unit' papers, in which a fullscale study is chopped into 'least-publishable' bits. We also see plenty of so-called 'Baloney Science' where a long-term study take serial form and appears in slices, no one of which means much by itself. IMRAD facilitates those kinds of papers, since each can be stamped into the semblance of fullness on the IMRAD template and dealt out to journals like a hand of cards. Does this ever cause authors to tease their own best work into fragments? Does the increased volume of LPU-type manuscripts clog the journal system and hinder the publication of superior work through sheer crowding? Further, some valuable work may not be IMRAD-shaped, and hammering it into that shape may cost something in terms of intelligibility. Occasionally, authors who think they are complaining about the way their papers were reviewed, or about the unwelcome revisions that were requested, are actually complaining about IMRAD itself. The standard format emphasizes redescription of methods that may have been described a hundred times before, and deemphasizes any account of why those methods were chosen. IMRAD is designed to display 'results' prominently, but woe betide the manipulation that had ambiguous results. IMRAD was designed as a model for writing about physical events which can be plainly demonstrated in terms of cause and effect. Not all research topics are so well understood. Some are frank mysteries. The authors still must employ IMRAD, though the results of using the information-dense, context-poor IMRAD format may be disastrous to intelligibility when the data are few and the context is rich. When these circumstances claim a victim, so to speak, it is interesting that the victim never blames IMRAD. He always blames the reviewers or the editors. Well, it is intellectually difficult and emotionally unsatisfactory to be angry at a discarnate idea anyway.
1142
Gary Mawyer Editorial Assistant