Any Suggestions As To Getting Help Understanding Convoluted English In Scientific Studies?

[yerrag]

As I try to read scientific articles, it's a rare thing that I'm able to read an article where I fully understand the article. Part of it is that I'm not schooled in biochemistry and I try to overcome that lack of formal schooling on the subject by educating myself on terms using the different tools available on the web - Khan Academy, wikipedia, and some of the ebooks that I come across on this forum.

However, even if I were to encounter some subject matter that's not so foreign to me, I still have difficulty understanding the writing. Some times it's just poor proofing by the writer all the way to the editor, and sometimes it's just poor grammar, and sometimes it's simply intentionally meant to be ambiguous , I think, so that the editor can be confused enough to just the article pass through for publication.

I end up on a rut, and wasting my time for ever getting started on reading an article, and just stop reading, in disgust. I've never tried asking anyone in the forum how they go about gaining understanding when they encounter such a roadblock, and I've never heard of anyone in this forum complaining about this. And I've not encountered anyone reaching out to this forum for help, either.

I'm quite certain I'm not alone here feeling this way. I wonder if I could start a thread for those of us who feel the same way I do. My purpose is not to complain about the poor English in scientific journals. My purpose is to get suggestions from you how such an individual could get help in such a situation. Not necessarily in this forum. It could be from an online paid service that charges, if such a service that exists, or if not online, a service that is available via email, or even by phone.

Here's an example:
From this article : https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/7/E1550.full.pdf

Platelets release pathogenic serotonin and return to circulation after immune complex-mediated sequestration

There is a growing appreciation for the contribution of platelets to immunity; however, our knowledge mostly relies on platelet functions associated with vascular injury and the prevention of bleeding. Circulating immune complexes (ICs) contribute to both chronic and acute inflammation in a multitude of clinical conditions. Herein, we scrutinized platelet responses to systemic ICs in the absence of tissue and endothelial wall injury. Platelet activation by circulating ICs through a mechanism requiring expression of platelet Fcγ receptor IIA resulted in the induction of systemic shock. IC-driven shock was dependent on release of serotonin from platelet-dense granules secondary to platelet outside-in signaling by αIIbβ3 and its ligand fibrinogen. While activated platelets sequestered in the lungs and leaky vasculature of the blood–brain barrier, platelets also sequestered in the absence of shock in mice lacking peripheral serotonin. Unexpectedly, platelets returned to the blood circulation with emptied granules and were thereby ineffective at promoting subsequent systemic shock, although they still underwent sequestration. We propose that in response to circulating ICs, platelets are a crucial mediator of the inflammatory response highly relevant to sepsis, viremia, and anaphylaxis. In addition, platelets recirculate after degranulation and sequestration, demonstrating that in adaptive immunity implicating antibody responses, activated platelets are longer lived than anticipated and may explain platelet count fluctuations in IC-driven diseases.

Here is the sentence that escaped the proofreading by the editor:

While activated platelets sequestered in the lungs and leaky vasculature of the blood–brain barrier, platelets also sequestered in the absence of shock in mice lacking peripheral serotonin.

Try as hard as I can, I couldn't make sense of this non-sentence. What is missing in this sentence? Is it "are?" to wit:

While activated platelets are sequestered in the lungs and leaky vasculature of the blood–brain barrier, platelets are also sequestered in the absence of shock in mice lacking peripheral serotonin.

It is a sentence alright, but now it doesn't seem to make sense. How can platelets be sequestered in the lungs? How can platelets be sequestered in the first place?

While at it, let's see if anyone here can unravel the meaning of the non-sentence.

 

[SB4]

I have to agree. I think some of it is that I just don't have the necessary education to understand it clearly but in other cases it does seem very convoluted for no apparent reason. Even when I know a decent amount of what the paper is on I still have to re read sentences over and over to figure out what they are saying.

 

[Amazoniac]

I understand only part of what members write, the other I have to deduce by context, especially if the member in question is narouz, Saturazione or Sheila. Their english is too advanced for me and they make it worse by adding unique expressions.

I believe 'was' were missing. You can search for it throughout the text or contact the corresponding guru for clarification. They is often receptive and at times surprised by the interest in their research.

Sometimes these issues happen when there's too many people involved and everyone is counting on the other, except that the next is doing the same and no one takes full responsibility for it.

When a text is less technical, it's also possible to tell if there was and where the transition of authors happen'd, the style changes.

 

[yerrag]

I have to agree. I think some of it is that I just don't have the necessary education to understand it clearly but in other cases it does seem very convoluted for no apparent reason. Even when I know a decent amount of what the paper is on I still have to re read sentences over and over to figure out what they are saying.

Would be nice to have software that can simplify complicated articles, as well as bull**** paper detectors!

I understand only part of what members write, the other I have to deduce by context, especially if the member in question is narouz, Saturazione or Sheila. Their english is too advanced for me and they make it worse by adding unique expressions.

I believe 'was' were missing. You can search for it throughout the text or contact the corresponding guru for clarification. They is often receptive and at times surprised by the interest in their research.

Sometimes these issues happen when there's too many people involved and everyone is counting on the other, except that the next is doing the same and no one takes full responsibility for it.

When a text is less technical, it's also possible to tell if there was and where the transition of authors happen'd, the style changes.

Right!

It's often the case - more people, more mistakes haha!

You're very perceptive detecting the change of authorship midway through. I can only do that kind of thing when the. cook changes in a Chinese restaurant.

I'll try writing to the author next time. Good idea and thanks!

 

[yerrag]

And @Amazoniac thanks for figuring out it was "was" missing in that sentence!

 

[Amazoniac]

Would be nice to have software that can simplify complicated articles, as well as bull**** paper detectors!


Right!

It's often the case - more people, more mistakes haha!

You're very perceptive detecting the change of authorship midway through. I can only do that kind of thing when the. cook changes in a Chinese restaurant.

I'll try writing to the author next time. Good idea and thanks!

You'll be surprised at how welcoming they tend to be. It's easy to reach these gurus:

Spoiler

So if you want to request a copy, it's often not necessary to resort to ResearchGate, you can contact the author directly.


Check out the statistics of the publication:
- Platelets release pathogenic serotonin and return to circulation after immune complex-mediated sequestration

Full-text and pdf readers are confounded. But to be conservative we can assume 400 readers a month. The article was also available on PMC, but there was supplementary material directing people to the journal's website. When the publication is available, I doubt that people will reach them without reading first. How many readers a month in total, 1000? And how many are contacting them? 30? I has no idea, but it can be one message or so per day for example. None of us here didded.

The guys often have more than one publication, so there's this. But they put effort into these and appreciate when there's interest, I guess it's rewarding. It's manageable for them to go through 10 of them a day. This doesn't apply to celebrities like Michael Holick.


Even if you were to ask them something basic, I doubt that authors wouldn't be willing to help if you acknowledged it in your message.

Example: I camed across your research after .. (if I was a researcher, I would like to know how people arrived at my work) and it's a topic that interests me. Wowever, I'm having trouble understanding .. because it's an area that I is starting to familiarize now. Do you mind explaining what's the meaning of that passage or point me to where I can learn more about it?

 

[Terma]

They are using "sequestered" as a verb. It refers to the platelets localizing to tissues in response to immune complexes triggering their receptor. The sentence seems to say they that did that whether there was any serotonin or not, but also seems to imply their conclusion that serotonin is required for shock (though further they say shock also requires neutrophils downstream of the serotonin). So the platelets respond to the immune signal but there would be no shock without serotonin or neutrophils. I haven't read that much about this (salt).

Many times I cannot get what authors are trying to say from abstracts. There is too much info to cram there, or the abstract is meant for a target audience or such is their implicit assumption, and sometimes it requires background to get the abstract.

I spend most of my time speeding through Discussion sections to get as many points of view as possible on a topic, then when time go back on the results where needed. The key is absorbing a high volume of viewpoints and information. There is an obvious flaw with this strategy, being you give some benefit of the doubt, temporarily, but it is mitigated by the exposure to more data and viewpoints on the same subjects, with replicated experiments.

Eventually by doing this you absorb the language and how they think to use it. Sometimes they basically invent words or appropriate them. Or like your article, I've noticed them use colloquial non-verbs as verbs. Many are not native english speakers. Only very occasionally have I seen serious errors in statements due to language, but it happens. The Introductions also can give useful background though it becomes redundant after awhile.

Going through Discussions foremost can be enlightening because it's where scientists get to be creative, and sometimes you find a brilliant concept idea in there you could never have thought of. Basically, you capitalize on that - it is optimistic. There's always time to be more critical and review results after you've absorbed all the known viewpoints, at which point you have a better rounded outlook to analyze those results.

For example I liked this part in your article (serotonin as a defensive response), though I barely skimmed it:

Thus, the present study sheds light on a major role of platelet serotonin in response to a systemic stimulus, which occurs independent of other molecules typically implicated in theprevention of bleeding. The advantages for an organism to re-lease bulk serotonin in response to systemic ICs are unclear. We can speculate that in response to a microbial invasion in an immune host, it might be preferable to reduce blood flow to prevent dissemination of the pathogen to vital organs and to facilitate its capture by phagocytes. As serotonin also mediates organ regeneration (52), its liberation may be pivotal to regrowth following insults caused by pathogen invasion.

That said, frequently the best thing is to find a really good review article on a topic, though they vary in quality. Sometimes they are surprisingly accessible and you can get all the background from them. They are less technical in nature, and are less likely to be written by non-native or poor english writers.

Amazoniac has a point you could always contact them. I've never done that.

 

[yerrag]

You'll be surprised at how welcoming they tend to be. It's easy to reach these gurus:

Spoiler

View attachment 15453

So if you want to request a copy, it's often not necessary to resort to ResearchGate, you can contact the author directly.


Check out the statistics of the publication:
- Platelets release pathogenic serotonin and return to circulation after immune complex-mediated sequestration

Full-text and pdf readers are confounded. But to be conservative we can assume 400 readers a month. The article was also available on PMC, but there was supplementary material directing people to the journal's website. When the publication is available, I doubt that people will reach them without reading first. How many readers a month in total, 1000? And how many are contacting them? 30? I has no idea, but it can be one message or so per day for example. None of us here didded.

The guys often have more than one publication, so there's this. But they put effort into these and appreciate when there's interest, I guess it's rewarding. It's manageable for them to go through 10 of them a day. This doesn't apply to celebrities like Michael Holick.


Even if you were to ask them something basic, I doubt that authors wouldn't be willing to help if you acknowledged it in your message.

Example: I camed across your research after .. (if I was a researcher, I would like to know how people arrived at my work) and it's a topic that interests me. Wowever, I'm having trouble understanding .. because it's an area that I is starting to familiarize now. Do you mind explaining what's the meaning of that passage or point me to where I can learn more about it?

That's very helpful. I should try these soon!

They are using "sequestered" as a verb. It refers to the platelets localizing to tissues in response to immune complexes triggering their receptor. The sentence seems to say they that did that whether there was any serotonin or not, but also seems to imply their conclusion that serotonin is required for shock (though further they say shock also requires neutrophils downstream of the serotonin). So the platelets respond to the immune signal but there would be no shock without serotonin or neutrophils. I haven't read that much about this (salt).

Many times I cannot get what authors are trying to say from abstracts. There is too much info to cram there, or the abstract is meant for a target audience or such is their implicit assumption, and sometimes it requires background to get the abstract.

I spend most of my time speeding through Discussion sections to get as many points of view as possible on a topic, then when time go back on the results where needed. The key is absorbing a high volume of viewpoints and information. There is an obvious flaw with this strategy, being you give some benefit of the doubt, temporarily, but it is mitigated by the exposure to more data and viewpoints on the same subjects, with replicated experiments.

Eventually by doing this you absorb the language and how they think to use it. Sometimes they basically invent words or appropriate them. Or like your article, I've noticed them use colloquial non-verbs as verbs. Many are not native english speakers. Only very occasionally have I seen serious errors in statements due to language, but it happens. The Introductions also can give useful background though it becomes redundant after awhile.

Going through Discussions foremost can be enlightening because it's where scientists get to be creative, and sometimes you find a brilliant concept idea in there you could never have thought of. Basically, you capitalize on that - it is optimistic. There's always time to be more critical and review results after you've absorbed all the known viewpoints, at which point you have a better rounded outlook to analyze those results.

For example I liked this part in your article (serotonin as a defensive response), though I barely skimmed it:


That said, frequently the best thing is to find a really good review article on a topic, though they vary in quality. Sometimes they are surprisingly accessible and you can get all the background from them. They are less technical in nature, and are less likely to be written by non-native or poor english writers.

Amazoniac has a point you could always contact them. I've never done that.

There's an art to going through these articles and you've been conscious of refining this art. Not getting too deep into it, and yet not too cursory such that important points are not missed. And this is before deciding whether you want to spend more time on it. I wasn't so conscious of this process, so thank you for elucidating on this!

 

[Amazoniac]

- EMF Protection Health Presentation | Martin Pall

One thing that I like to do whenever I contact these gurus is to send them a publication related to the topic since theirs usually develop in sequence, one leads to the other, what they is currently working on is possibly related to the previous. I prefer this to the plain automated 'thank you'. I do this with Raj as well whenever I contacted him, it has become a habit, I joke that it's 'just to keep the tradition of avoiding an empty message, here's something that might interest you..'.

Informal speech has advantages because you cut through the baking soda and avoid the boring bits. Imagine various messages in the same format every day and then expecting the robotized 'thank you' afterwards that only serves to pollute your email inbox.