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"Gross, Alan G"
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All That Glitters Isn't Gold: A Survey on Acknowledgment of Limitations in Biomedical Studies
Acknowledgment of all serious limitations to research evidence is important for patient care and scientific progress. Formal research on how biomedical authors acknowledge limitations is scarce.
To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and implicitly by investigating the use of phrases that express uncertainty, so-called hedges; to assess the association between industry support and the extent of hedging.
We analyzed reporting of limitations and use of hedges in 300 biomedical publications published in 30 high and medium -ranked journals in 2007. Hedges were assessed using linguistic software that assigned weights between 1 and 5 to each expression of uncertainty.
Twenty-seven percent of publications (81/300) did not mention any limitations, while 73% acknowledged a median of 3 (range 1-8) limitations. Five percent mentioned a limitation in the abstract. After controlling for confounders, publications on industry-supported studies used significantly fewer hedges than publications not so supported (p = 0.028).
Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.
Reporting of limitations in biomedical publications is probably very incomplete. Transparent reporting of limitations may protect clinicians and guideline committees against overly confident beliefs and decisions and support scientific progress through better design, conduct or analysis of new studies.
Journal Article
A Model for the Division of Semiotic Labor in Scientific Argument: The Interaction of Words and Images
A growing cross-disciplinary literature has acknowledged the importance of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of scientific texts. I contend that the proper understanding of these texts must flow from a hermeneutic model that takes verbal-visual interaction seriously, one that is firmly grounded in cognitive constraints and affordances. The model I propose has two modules, one for perception, derived from Gestalt psychology, the other for cognition, derived from Peirce's semiotics. I apply this model to an important but largely neglected text in the history of nineteenth-century science, Charles Lyell's The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, and to two accounts by well-respected historians of science, both of the same key discovery in quantum physics. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate the advisability of incorporating the exegetical practices my model entails into the everyday practices of historians of science.
Journal Article
Communicating science : the scientific article from the 17th century to the present
This book describes the development of the scientific article from its modest beginnings to the global phenomenon that it has become today. Their analysis of a large sample of texts in French, English, and German focuses on the changes in the style, oganization, and argumentative structure of scientific communication over time. They also speculate on the future currency of the scientific article, as it enters the era of the World Wide Web. This book is an outstanding resource text in the rhetoric of science, and will stand as the definitive study on the topic.
eBook
Toward a Theory of Verbal-Visual Interaction: The Example of Lavoisier
Because visuals play a significant communicative role in the majority of texts in the sciences, a theory of the role of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of meaning would seem a useful addition to the exegetical armamentarium. This paper offers such a theory, Dual Coding Theory (DCT), borrowed from cognitive psychology but adapted to exegesis. An analysis of Lavoisier's final geological memoir, an analysis grounded in this theory, is designed to illustrate DCT's utility. In my conclusion, I take note of the fact that in a wide variety of contemporary media meaning is also largely the product of verbal-visual interaction.
Journal Article
The craft of scientific communication
The ability to communicate in print and person is essential to the life of a successful scientist. But since writing is often secondary in scientific education and teaching, there remains a significant need for guides that teach scientists how best to convey their research to general and professional audiences. The Craft of Scientific Communication will teach science students and scientists alike how to improve the clarity, cogency, and communicative power of their words and images. In this remarkable guide, Joseph E. Harmon and Alan G. Gross have combined their many years of experience in the art of science writing to analyze published examples of how the best scientists communicate. Organized topically with information on the structural elements and the style of scientific communications, each chapter draws on models of past successes and failures to show students and practitioners how best to negotiate the world of print, online publication, and oral presentation.
eBook
Rereading Aristotle's Rhetoric
In this collection edited by Alan G.Gross and Arthur E.Walzer, scholars in communication, rhetoric and composition, and philosophy seek to \"reread\" Aristotle's Rhetoric from a purely rhetorical perspective.
eBook