Sloppy writing is not a sign of sloppy science

Academic reviewers seldom pull their punches, but their harshest words can sometimes be reserved not for the wisdom of your experimental design or the accuracy of your analysis but for your spelling or grammar mistakes.

There are reviewers who seem happy to point out where colons should be semicolons, or when italics, capitalisation or Latin are appropriate. It is unclear whether they think they are reviewers, copy-editors or proofreaders. “Inappropriate” punctuation and deviation from journal guidelines provoke particularly furious comments. It is implied that such errors are markers of carelessness, dysfunctional impulsivity and poor scholarship. If you’re careless about grammar, the assumption is that you are also likely to be careless about facts, theories, extrapolations, so your paper or grant application can be summarily rejected.

My personal disorders, traits and work style mean I face this charge quite a lot. I have since I was at school. Yet I have always taken exception to those who argue that attention to grammatical detail is a marker of an individual’s attitudes to work. Of course, repeated grammatical clangers can be a barrier to a reader’s comprehension, but what is the evidence that a misplaced semicolon is truly indicative of wider sloppiness? 

For a start, where is the line supposed to be? Is it more forgivable to make errors in emails, for instance, because people are required to be speedy? What about speech? You get to the interview with the help of some software that checks your CV, but then you mix up less and fewer, or pepper your sentences with “kind of”. Should that rule you out?

Psychologists have conducted studies of how various factors, such as the visual and acoustic properties of letters and words, affect detection of both intra-word errors (misspellings, typos) and inter-word/contextual errors (faulty grammar, incorrect word usage). Other studies have looked at how personality and other abilities correlate with proofreading skills.

I have done some of these studies myself. But rather than finding that people who make fewer grammar mistakes also make fewer mistakes in other aspects of their research, I have noticed something different: that those who are fetishistic about grammar tend to be a tad OCD. They are maladaptive perfectionists, with low emotional intelligence and zero creativity. They are hypercritical, passive-aggressive, all-or-nothing thinkers. And, of course, they are unproductive because nothing is quite good enough. Ever.

Even at school, I noticed that, of my English teachers, the strict grammarians were the least inspirational. Swift to chide and slow to bless, they believed that grammar was more important than ideas. Consider what kind of people become proofreaders or copy-editors: look at their creative writing output. Would you choose to have lunch with one of them if you wanted a really good time? More to the point, would you really want one of them involved in the production of one of your papers – as opposed to merely checking the final product?

It is worth considering the difference between grammatical and communicative excellence. Personally, I value vocabulary above grammar. I care more that someone knows what lugubrious, pusillanimous or pulchritudinous mean, rather than whether they can spell them. “Ah,” I hear you say, “but people with a big vocabulary can also spell. The two go together: it is called verbal intelligence or literariness.” Possibly, but, again, where is the evidence? Does one read fiction or poetry for its grammar, for instance? Remember e e cummings.

Honestly, who cares about the role of the semicolon? Why is it wrong to boldly split an infinitive? Of course there is an issue where a grammatical error fails to convey the intended meaning, but it rarely does.

“There is a difference, though, between scientific paper-writing and ‘popular’ writing of all kinds,” retort the critics. Agreed. Formulas must be right, and so must the tables. But this is not grammarian territory.

More recently, the sensitive issue of dyslexia has become more prominent. Dyslexia literally means difficulty with words. It has also been called word blindness, and specific reading or writing deficit. The term is used by professionals to denote significant and persistent reading difficulties. Often people living with dyslexia can’t spell, so, by definition, they don’t proof their work well. This is a real and problematic issue.

Beyond this, however, some people are simply more careless than others – amen to that. Some are more efficient than others. Amen to that, too. There is always a trade-off between speed and accuracy; between convergent and divergent thinking; between fealty to spirit of the law and letter of the law.

Recently, though, an old friend claimed I was too defensive about problems being identified in my writing. I resent it so much, he contended, that I attribute a litany of personality defects to anyone who brings my mistakes to my attention – indeed, to anyone who writes carefully.

Maybe he’s right. But I’m not convinced. We do and should expect academic writing to be accurate. Fewer among us expect it to be “well written”, though. And, for my part, I reject outright the claim that grammatical errors are markers of personal carelessness or even subclinical, functional impulsivity. They are just the sign of someone focused on more important things.

Adrian Furnham is an adjunct professor in psychology at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo and a former professor of psychology at UCL.