Letter to the editor

I read with interest and appreciation the recent editorial by the JVDI editor, Grant Maxie, “Personalizing science—who did what when?” ⁴ I have taught biomedical writing to young investigators for several years, and completely agree with Dr. Maxie’s points about personalizing the research and using an active voice whenever appropriate. As scientists, our goal is to communicate our information as clearly, succinctly, and unambiguously as possible. By writing in an active voice, we not only achieve these goals but also usually reduce the word count.

The one issue I have with Dr. Maxie’s editorial is the idea of anthropomorphizing actions. I would disagree that using phrases such as “the study results show,” “our results highlight,” etc. represents an inappropriate anthropomorphisation.

Anthropomorphism is commonly defined as “imbuing imagined or real behavior of nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions and emotions.”^1,2,5 Simply ascribing an action to a nonhuman agent (in this case, the study, or results) does not meet these criteria. Firstly, these verbs do not describe exclusively human actions. For example, nonhuman animals can “show” or “display” or “demonstrate” various behaviors. It would be the assigning of a human motivation for such an action that would constitute “anthropomorphism.” A dog or baboon or tiger can “show its teeth.” This is an objective description of an action. Deciding that such a dental display indicates aggression, or love, or anger would anthropomorphize the action. Furthermore, inanimate objects can also “show” things. For example, a rock can “show evidence of glaciation.” The Oxford Dictionary provides multiple examples for the verb to show (defined as “allow or cause (something) to be visible”): “a white blouse will show the blood,” “a travel clock shows the time in different cities.” I imagine that Dr. Maxie would agree that a painting can show a field of flowers, that a map can show the location of a geographic entity. We would never write that “the mapmaker showed the location of Paris on the map of France that he drew.” And if we accept this usage, then a graph or figure in a manuscript can equally “show” a finding. And, since a graph or figure is a “result,” then results can equally show the reader various points pertaining to the study.

Indeed, a decade ago, an article appeared (if, indeed, an article can “appear”!) in the New York Times, titled “What Do Scientific Studies Show?” ³ Ascribing actions to inanimate or nonhuman agents does not immediately invoke an anthropomorphic position. Only if the action is coupled to a uniquely human characteristic, motivation, intention, or emotion would we transgress that boundary. Therefore, if ascribing an action to results or the study improves readability and reduces word count, I would argue that such an ascription is valid and useful.

Mark Rishniw, BVSc, MS, PhD, DACVIM
Cornell University