Products Documents
A Guide to Understanding Journal Phraseology
The author writes:
It has long been known.
REALLY means:
I haven't bothered to look it up.
 
The author writes:
It is believed.
REALLY means:
I think.
 
The author writes:
It is generally believed.
REALLY means:
A couple of other guys think so too.
 
The author writes:
It is not unreasonable to assume.
REALLY means:
If you believe this, you'll believe anything.
 
The author writes:
Of great theoretical importance.
REALLY means:
I find it kind of interesting.
 
The author writes:
Of great practical importance.
REALLY means:
I can get some mileage out of it.
 
The author writes:
Typical results are shown.
REALLY means:
The best results are shown.
 
The author writes:
Three samples were chosen for further study.
REALLY means:
The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them.
 
The author writes:
The 4 hour sample was not studied.
REALLY means:
I dropped it on the floor.
 
The author writes:
The 4 hour determination may not be significant.
REALLY means:
I dropped it on the floor, but scooped most of it up.
 
The author writes:
The significance of these results is unclear.
REALLY means:
Look at the pretty artifact.
 
The author writes:
It has not been possible to provide definitive answers.
REALLY means:
The experiment was negative, but at least I can publish the data somewhere.
 
The author writes:
Correct within an order of magnitude.
REALLY means:
Wrong.
 
The author writes:
It might be argued that.
REALLY means:
I have such a good answer for that objection that I shall now raise it.
 
The author writes:
Much additional work will be required.
REALLY means:
This paper is not very good, but neither are all the others in this miserable field.
 
The author writes:
These investigations proved highly rewarding.
REALLY means:
My grant is going to be renewed.
 
The author writes:
I thank Smith for assistance with the experiments and Jones for useful discussions on the interpretation of the data.
REALLY means:
Smith did the experiment and Jones explained it to me.
 
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