- Email: [email protected]
To write the unwritable wrong
74
E x~ectecl resutt Total AAA
~
' l ZSDS÷EL[~n's Resge~t~
Cys; Cys - Cys
~ I zstYs* ~ - etnytmo~,m~oe~
Cys; Cys- Cys
,ncTreetor~,~n;r°mo[r~:r~ra~ o, ~
i I tUreo * GLyclne~thyLester~
AAA w~th decreose~ Tyr MOdlf ~e0 Tyr obsorbonce AAA with ~ncreosed OLy Lys AAA w~*h ~reo~ Lys Qus%er~sry s%ruc~u~
amino acids. Four types of amino acid side chains are studied: thiol (Cys); aromatic (Tyr); basic (Lys); and acidic (Asp, Glu). A final experiment in this scheme involves proposing the quaternary structure of a protein by means of cross-linking the subunits using dimethyl suberimidate, The extent of modification is determined from amino acid analyses and the probable quaternary structure suggested from the band pattern obtained following SDS-PAGE. A statement concerning the symmetry of the ollgomer is also possible.
Discussion We have attempted in this course to introduce undergraduates to some of the techniques used frequently in a protein chemistry laboratory. The students themselves have found the course challenging in that they have had to plan their own experiments, have had to explain incongruous results, both for themselves and for their colleagues at weekly seminars. In schemes I and III, the proteins used in our course were dehydrogenases, but these could easily be changed to include proteins containing disulphide bridges, heterogeneous subunits, etc.
To Write the Unwritable W r o n g . . . BERNARD S BROWN Department o f Biochemistry Medical School, University o f Manchester Manchester, UK The Thesis-writer was weary. For six long weeks he had grappled with grammar, struggled with syntax, fumbled with phrases. For six long weeks he had sweated blood over the magnum opus, but it had all been in vain. His efforts had yielded nothing but useless scribblings. In the end he became desperate and decided to seek help from above: he decided to consult his supervisor. The Supervisor was sitting at his desk when the Thesiswriter arrived. He spoke cheerfully to the Thesis-writer, but was inwardly resigning himself to a distasteful task; he was a researcher not a writer, and he felt more at ease with the testtube than with the pen. His place was in the lab!
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 11(2) 1983
The Thesis-writer wasted no time. He sat down next to the Supervisor and poured forth his problems. "I know what 1 want to say," he explained, "but 1 just can't seem to be able to get it down on paper." "But you've got the published p a p e r s . . . " "They're no help at all," objected the Thesis-writer. "They don't show me how to get the words to flow right." "Give me an example," said the Supervisor. "Well, take this Chapter on the incorporation of mevalonic acid into maize." "Yes. What's the difficulty with that?" "Finding a suitable opening sentence. Here's one I thought of in the early hours of this morning." He took pen and paper, and wrote: Before our work no one had studied the incorporation o f 2 -14 C-mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols. He asked the Supervisor's opinion. The Supervisor read the sentence, and his brow furrowed with deep concern. "I think I see your problem now," he said. "This won't do at all. Why, it's too clear; too lucid; anybody reading this would understand it instantly." "But isn't that the whole point of writing the work up?" "Of course not! It's a thesis you're writing, not a novel. Still, you've done all the spadework. It should be easy enough to change it to correct thesis style." "But how?" asked the Thesis-writer. The Supervisor took a clean sheet of paper. "First of all," he explained, "we work in the passive. We do this because it's much easier to create confusion. Hence your sentence becomes: Before our work the incorporation o f 2 J 4 C mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols had not been studied. "But that's just as easy to understand as my version was!" observed the Thesis-writer. "Besides, they both contain - er - eighteen words." "Early days yet," replied the Supervisor. "Having decided upon the general sentence structure, we now get down to details. For example, those first three w o r d s - before our w o r k - are far too easy to understand; they'll have to be expanded. But even I will need a bit of help here." He reached for his copy of Handbook o f Standardized, Hackneyed and Overworked Phrases for the Science Writer Who Wishes to Call a Spade a Manually Operated Excavating Implement. Because of its verbosity the third edition of the Handbook was indeed a thick volume, but it remained the indispensable standby for the bad science-writer. The Supervisor had used the Handbook many times. Now he found the section on Temporal Relationships, looked up before current work and read out prior to the investigations described here. "This'll do," he said, rewriting the sentence fragment: Prior to the investigations described in this thesis... "Wouldn't within this thesis be better?" asked the Thesiswriter.
75 "Ah, you're getting the idea now," replied the Supervisor excitedly. "In fact, within the compass of this thesis would be better still." He wrote out the new version: Prior to the investigations described within the compass of this thesis... But the Thesis-writer was not entirely happy. "Look, there's a tense problem here," he said. "Prior to the investigations described implies that we've already described the investigations at the time of writing; in fact we're just about to describe them." "I suppose you're right," replied the Supervisor doubtfully. "The only way out of this is to inject an essence of futurity into the sentence. To do this we need a to be infinitive. Have you got one handy by any chance?" "Er - no." "Hmmm, neither have I. Still, I suppose I could take one from my latest paper; the manuscript's not been sent off yet." He took a thick sheaf of papers from his desk drawer. Thumbing through them he reached the last sentence and scrutinised it carefully. Sure enough, there was the to be int'mitive sitting quite happily in 'It remains to be seen whether further work will substantiate these findings.' "You're not going to take the infinitive out of there, are you?" inquired the Thesis-writer. "But of course! The technique's really quite simple: it's only split inf'mitives that are tricky. You just grab it by the preposition - you do less damage that way - and jerk it out of context. Reach me those tweezers and I'll show you." Skilfully the Supervisor extracted the infinitive. It wriggled, and almost got away, but the Supervisor was experienced in such matters. Deftly he made a space in the sentence fragment and installed the infinitive. "There, that should be all right," he said, viewing critically the revised sentence fragment: Prior to the investigations to be described within the compass of this thesis... "You see what we've done?" he asked the Thesis-writer. "We've inserted a lot of semantically dead wood, thus making the whole thing far more difficult to understand. And we've only just started! Let's take the rest of your sentence: . . . no one had studied the incorporation of 2-~ ~C-mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols. "This is much too short. A mere fifteen words are far too easy to understand. Still, we'll soon fix that. We've already made it passive; have you any ideas on how to further impair the reader's understanding?" The split infinitive tripped glibly from his tongue. "No, not really." "Well, as a guide I always use the principle exemplified by the Handbook: never use one word when you can say the same thing with half a dozen. Thus we'd write: the efficiency with which 2-~C-mevalonic acid is incorporated instead of the incorporation of mevalonic acid. "Then, instead of the adjective plant we'd use an adverbial phrase: by members o f the plant kingdom. "Finally, our piece de rbsistance, we'd write: 'terpenoid quinones chromanols and related compounds', thus adding a bit of vagueness.
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 11(2) 1983
"Right, let's have a look at the whole sentence." Prior to the investigations to be described within the compass o f this thesis the efficiency with which 2-14 C-mevalonic acid is incorporated into terpenoid quinones chromanols and related compounds by members o f the plant kingdom had not been studied. "Doesn't it need a comma or two somewhere?" asked the Thesis-writer. "Yes, I was coming to that," replied the Supervisor. "It's amazing the confusion you can create with a few commas put in the right places. Here, let me show you." The Supervisor opened a new packet of commas and started placing them within the sentence. He worked quickly and confidently, and soon he had finished. "It only needed five," he said, "just look at it now." The Thesis-writer read: Prior to the investigations, to be described within the compass of this thesis, the efficiency with which 2-14 C-mevalonic acid is incorporated into terpenoid quinones, chromanols, and related compounds, by members of the plant Mngdom had not been studied. "But why did you put a comma after investigations?'" "To create a false appositive clause," explained the Supervisor. "Having reached the first comma, the reader thinks he's going to be given some additional information about the nature of the investigations. He doesn't realise until too late that he's not; so he has to read the whole sentence again." "But surely that comma after compounds is wrong." "Of course it is! It makes the reader think it was members of the plant kingdom that hadn't done the studying. A semicolon would have been better, but I haven't any to spare." The Supervisor read the sentence once more and smirked with satisfaction. "I'm very pleased with that," he said, "I doubt whether there's an editor in the country who wouldn't bounce it back at us. "Do you think you can manage on your own now? There's a box of dependent clauses in that drawer if you want them. I'm due in the lecture theatre in five minutes." He rose and left, leaving a much enlightened Thesis-writer alone with his thoughts.
E x~ectecl resutt Total AAA
~
' l ZSDS÷EL[~n's Resge~t~
Cys; Cys - Cys
~ I zstYs* ~ - etnytmo~,m~oe~
Cys; Cys- Cys
,ncTreetor~,~n;r°mo[r~:r~ra~ o, ~
i I tUreo * GLyclne~thyLester~
AAA w~th decreose~ Tyr MOdlf ~e0 Tyr obsorbonce AAA with ~ncreosed OLy Lys AAA w~*h ~reo~ Lys Qus%er~sry s%ruc~u~
amino acids. Four types of amino acid side chains are studied: thiol (Cys); aromatic (Tyr); basic (Lys); and acidic (Asp, Glu). A final experiment in this scheme involves proposing the quaternary structure of a protein by means of cross-linking the subunits using dimethyl suberimidate, The extent of modification is determined from amino acid analyses and the probable quaternary structure suggested from the band pattern obtained following SDS-PAGE. A statement concerning the symmetry of the ollgomer is also possible.
Discussion We have attempted in this course to introduce undergraduates to some of the techniques used frequently in a protein chemistry laboratory. The students themselves have found the course challenging in that they have had to plan their own experiments, have had to explain incongruous results, both for themselves and for their colleagues at weekly seminars. In schemes I and III, the proteins used in our course were dehydrogenases, but these could easily be changed to include proteins containing disulphide bridges, heterogeneous subunits, etc.
To Write the Unwritable W r o n g . . . BERNARD S BROWN Department o f Biochemistry Medical School, University o f Manchester Manchester, UK The Thesis-writer was weary. For six long weeks he had grappled with grammar, struggled with syntax, fumbled with phrases. For six long weeks he had sweated blood over the magnum opus, but it had all been in vain. His efforts had yielded nothing but useless scribblings. In the end he became desperate and decided to seek help from above: he decided to consult his supervisor. The Supervisor was sitting at his desk when the Thesiswriter arrived. He spoke cheerfully to the Thesis-writer, but was inwardly resigning himself to a distasteful task; he was a researcher not a writer, and he felt more at ease with the testtube than with the pen. His place was in the lab!
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 11(2) 1983
The Thesis-writer wasted no time. He sat down next to the Supervisor and poured forth his problems. "I know what 1 want to say," he explained, "but 1 just can't seem to be able to get it down on paper." "But you've got the published p a p e r s . . . " "They're no help at all," objected the Thesis-writer. "They don't show me how to get the words to flow right." "Give me an example," said the Supervisor. "Well, take this Chapter on the incorporation of mevalonic acid into maize." "Yes. What's the difficulty with that?" "Finding a suitable opening sentence. Here's one I thought of in the early hours of this morning." He took pen and paper, and wrote: Before our work no one had studied the incorporation o f 2 -14 C-mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols. He asked the Supervisor's opinion. The Supervisor read the sentence, and his brow furrowed with deep concern. "I think I see your problem now," he said. "This won't do at all. Why, it's too clear; too lucid; anybody reading this would understand it instantly." "But isn't that the whole point of writing the work up?" "Of course not! It's a thesis you're writing, not a novel. Still, you've done all the spadework. It should be easy enough to change it to correct thesis style." "But how?" asked the Thesis-writer. The Supervisor took a clean sheet of paper. "First of all," he explained, "we work in the passive. We do this because it's much easier to create confusion. Hence your sentence becomes: Before our work the incorporation o f 2 J 4 C mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols had not been studied. "But that's just as easy to understand as my version was!" observed the Thesis-writer. "Besides, they both contain - er - eighteen words." "Early days yet," replied the Supervisor. "Having decided upon the general sentence structure, we now get down to details. For example, those first three w o r d s - before our w o r k - are far too easy to understand; they'll have to be expanded. But even I will need a bit of help here." He reached for his copy of Handbook o f Standardized, Hackneyed and Overworked Phrases for the Science Writer Who Wishes to Call a Spade a Manually Operated Excavating Implement. Because of its verbosity the third edition of the Handbook was indeed a thick volume, but it remained the indispensable standby for the bad science-writer. The Supervisor had used the Handbook many times. Now he found the section on Temporal Relationships, looked up before current work and read out prior to the investigations described here. "This'll do," he said, rewriting the sentence fragment: Prior to the investigations described in this thesis... "Wouldn't within this thesis be better?" asked the Thesiswriter.
75 "Ah, you're getting the idea now," replied the Supervisor excitedly. "In fact, within the compass of this thesis would be better still." He wrote out the new version: Prior to the investigations described within the compass of this thesis... But the Thesis-writer was not entirely happy. "Look, there's a tense problem here," he said. "Prior to the investigations described implies that we've already described the investigations at the time of writing; in fact we're just about to describe them." "I suppose you're right," replied the Supervisor doubtfully. "The only way out of this is to inject an essence of futurity into the sentence. To do this we need a to be infinitive. Have you got one handy by any chance?" "Er - no." "Hmmm, neither have I. Still, I suppose I could take one from my latest paper; the manuscript's not been sent off yet." He took a thick sheaf of papers from his desk drawer. Thumbing through them he reached the last sentence and scrutinised it carefully. Sure enough, there was the to be int'mitive sitting quite happily in 'It remains to be seen whether further work will substantiate these findings.' "You're not going to take the infinitive out of there, are you?" inquired the Thesis-writer. "But of course! The technique's really quite simple: it's only split inf'mitives that are tricky. You just grab it by the preposition - you do less damage that way - and jerk it out of context. Reach me those tweezers and I'll show you." Skilfully the Supervisor extracted the infinitive. It wriggled, and almost got away, but the Supervisor was experienced in such matters. Deftly he made a space in the sentence fragment and installed the infinitive. "There, that should be all right," he said, viewing critically the revised sentence fragment: Prior to the investigations to be described within the compass of this thesis... "You see what we've done?" he asked the Thesis-writer. "We've inserted a lot of semantically dead wood, thus making the whole thing far more difficult to understand. And we've only just started! Let's take the rest of your sentence: . . . no one had studied the incorporation of 2-~ ~C-mevalonic acid into plant terpenoid quinones and chromanols. "This is much too short. A mere fifteen words are far too easy to understand. Still, we'll soon fix that. We've already made it passive; have you any ideas on how to further impair the reader's understanding?" The split infinitive tripped glibly from his tongue. "No, not really." "Well, as a guide I always use the principle exemplified by the Handbook: never use one word when you can say the same thing with half a dozen. Thus we'd write: the efficiency with which 2-~C-mevalonic acid is incorporated instead of the incorporation of mevalonic acid. "Then, instead of the adjective plant we'd use an adverbial phrase: by members o f the plant kingdom. "Finally, our piece de rbsistance, we'd write: 'terpenoid quinones chromanols and related compounds', thus adding a bit of vagueness.
BIOCHEMICAL EDUCATION 11(2) 1983
"Right, let's have a look at the whole sentence." Prior to the investigations to be described within the compass o f this thesis the efficiency with which 2-14 C-mevalonic acid is incorporated into terpenoid quinones chromanols and related compounds by members o f the plant kingdom had not been studied. "Doesn't it need a comma or two somewhere?" asked the Thesis-writer. "Yes, I was coming to that," replied the Supervisor. "It's amazing the confusion you can create with a few commas put in the right places. Here, let me show you." The Supervisor opened a new packet of commas and started placing them within the sentence. He worked quickly and confidently, and soon he had finished. "It only needed five," he said, "just look at it now." The Thesis-writer read: Prior to the investigations, to be described within the compass of this thesis, the efficiency with which 2-14 C-mevalonic acid is incorporated into terpenoid quinones, chromanols, and related compounds, by members of the plant Mngdom had not been studied. "But why did you put a comma after investigations?'" "To create a false appositive clause," explained the Supervisor. "Having reached the first comma, the reader thinks he's going to be given some additional information about the nature of the investigations. He doesn't realise until too late that he's not; so he has to read the whole sentence again." "But surely that comma after compounds is wrong." "Of course it is! It makes the reader think it was members of the plant kingdom that hadn't done the studying. A semicolon would have been better, but I haven't any to spare." The Supervisor read the sentence once more and smirked with satisfaction. "I'm very pleased with that," he said, "I doubt whether there's an editor in the country who wouldn't bounce it back at us. "Do you think you can manage on your own now? There's a box of dependent clauses in that drawer if you want them. I'm due in the lecture theatre in five minutes." He rose and left, leaving a much enlightened Thesis-writer alone with his thoughts.