No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

bunjywunjy entraptasboobwindow

disgruntledlungfish

bro that's the fanfiction community tho?????

english-history-trip yorksnapshots

yorksnapshots

A medieval pond.

A surviving pond at Cawood Castle Garth owned by the Archbishops of York since the 10th Century. In 1986 the locals bought the garth in order to preserve it for the community. Today it is home to the rare and endangered Great Crested Newt. Garth is the Saxon name for garden.

english-history-trip

The good boy in question:

York

drpathetique mugwomps

im-okay-unless-im-not

Dear scientists,

Please, for the love of God, please, make your papers more understandable.

Fuck you

Sincerely,

A college student on the verge of tears

learnyouabiology

I’m writing a manuscript rn and every single piece of feedback i’ve gotten has boiled down to “use more technical language” and “be more formal”, and I have been actively going “i will not be doing that, thanks” but my GOD do they not like it.

learnyouabiology

update: i cant believe this is actual literal feedback i actually recieved

gallusrostromegalus

OK so this is a genuine issue in scientific communication where a paper requires very Precise language, and because people aren't really used to writing that, they crutch on rules of Formality, because they've never been taught how to write with Clarity.

In the above example, 'huge' is not a very precise term. Could mean anything from "lots" to "About the size of a battleship" to "bigger than expected". Not a very precise term. I'm not sure what OP's field is, but they should probably be using a word that's more specific like "Statistically Significant Differneces" instead of "Huge differences", or maybe "Widespread Impact" instead of "Huge Impact". Whoever is providing critique here should say "the use of 'huge' here is imprecise and can confuse what you're talking about, please use a more specific descriptor".

What people generally are asking for when they want something 'understandable' is Clarity. Complex topics are perfectly fine, but they need to be explained clearly. Purdue has a good guide here, which I'll share the outline of, because it's genuinely good advice for many genres or writing:

Go from old to new information and keep the timeline straight. No Dr. Who Plots.
Use Transitional words when bridging concepts. Words like however, therefore, in addition, also, but, moreover, etc.
Keep your sentence structure simple, and mind where you put subordinate clauses. This is really hard for ADHD people who srt of tend to zig-zag across concepts, but in general, it's better to have several simple sentences than one huge rambling one.
Use Active Voice. Good: "The Comittee decided to postpone the meeting". Bad: "A descision was reached to postpone the meeting by the comittee"
Use Parallel Contructions. If you're comparing several things, use the same gramatical structure to describe each thing.
Avoid Noun Strings. Good: "These projects will stimulate investments" Bad: "Investment Stimulation Projects"
Avoid using the noun version of verbs. Good: "The Plan was implemented sucessfully." Bad: "The implementation of the plan was sucessful."
Avoid Multiple Negatives. Double negatives are confusing as hell, triple negatives are worse.
Chose Action verbs over forms of "to be". Good: "TV can report on events much faster than newspapers." Bad: "One difference between TV and newspapers is the relative speed at which they can report on things."
Avid Unclear Pronoun References: If you use terms like It, They, He, She etc. make sure it's very clear who or what that pronoun is referring to.

thefutureisporcelain unemployedlibrarian

pangur-and-grim ordinaryredtail

sailorofthesleaze asked:

For the leucistic redtail you reblogged, do you know if there's any danger to an adult hawk from having that coloring? I could see how a chick could be at risk from nest predators, but would a paler adult have any issues? (Assuming that's a wild bird at all and not a captive)

ordinaryredtail answered:

Not much research has been done in this area, I’m afraid. There was someone who spoke about color morphs at the raptor research meeting this year and I tried to ask a similar question and I was given a roundabout answer. Pure white leucism like this:

Is extremely rare in the wild.

Leucism like this:

Is a fair bit more common.

My biggest concern with these birds in the wild isn’t really predators. Chicks in the nest all look like little white cottonballs, and when they get their adult feathers in, they are too big for common nest predators to get to. In addition, sometimes this leucism progresses or changes as the bird molts; it’s possible that a bird has fully normal juvenile plumage and molts into the white.

Pigmentation in feathers is a part of their structural makeup. If you notice on both of those birds, the feathers that are white look absolutely trashed, while the normal ones look relatively still decent.

This is likely due to the structure of the feather breaking down because of lack of pigmentation. Specifically, if you look at many birds with light or white feathers, the tips are usually very dark.

This helps keep the feather intact despite having a decline in melanin, not to mention that these birds above are not exhibiting any color mutations.

All in all this is an extremely speculative area of bird science that is very hard to study. I would have liked to do something with this, but in all honesty looking at behavior and food habits are more beneficial to species than looking at color mutations.