Is this just bad science writing?

I'm sure you realize how these things work:

Journals and scientific organizations put out press releases.

Editors and writers at wire services and news outlets scan those, and also the news and views pieces from some of the top journals, looking for interesting stuff.

The writers rewrite the press releases into news stories that are designed to catch the public's eye.

They are presented to their subscribers in a digital format.

And then the outlets pick up the stories that they want and publish them.

In this case, I found the original press release at the ESA Portal (first link). It is well written and gives a much clearer picture of the science that was presented at the meeting.

Obviously, there was some breakdown in how Space.com wrote it up, and a second one in how the CSM presented it. But we don't really know what happened.

For one thing, I guess that Space.com is not that big of an operation. I expect that each writer probably has to put out 6 to 10 pieces a day. So they might not get much chance to re-edit something once it is past the first round.

And as for the CSM, they probably have only one or two working on their science pieces. And they might not be allowed to alter the pieces that they receive due to copyright restrictions in their subscription contract.

As for the writing itself, as you say it could be poor writing, and a lack of proper editing. It could be that the writer posted an incomplete early version of the story. Or, given that the story was from Europe, English might not have been the first language of the writer and editor. Possibly the web guys scrambled the piece when they posted it. Who knows?

It is too bad that story was poorly presented. It does undermine the care with which science is conducted. But such is life. Perhaps if you (and the other people who answered here?) write a letter to Space.com, they will post a corrected version to their subscribers ...

I saw a quote from Darwin recently (second link) that might fit this incident in the broad sense that people who understand science should spread the word:

"Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction. For only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed."

From my journalism days, I suspect that the original writer did a good job, then some m-ron editor added these two eye-catcher paragraphs at the beginning:

==

New cosmic observations from the European-built Herschel infrared space observatory have revealed previously hidden details of star form tucked away in distant galaxies. One snapshot reveals what researchers called an 'impossible' star caught in the act of forming.

The new images show thousands of these galaxies and beautiful star-forming clouds draped across the Milky Way.

==

Re-read the article without the m-ronic-written first couple of paragraphs.

Usually I'm probably more pedantic than you, but

You have to remember that this article apparently was written for general public consumption and secondly people looking at stars just see stars are the stars in a particular constellation in our galaxy? partly in our galaxy? single stars? other galaxies? binary stars?

The point is to arouse interest and the author has made a reasonable fist of that, the star people can work it out and the rest don't give a rat's nose dropping about the detail, it's enough to get a 'gee whizz' reaction.

I found the press release that was re-written and obviously embellished for publication. Poor writing and/or editing by someone who does not know much about astronomy. It does not do science any good by allowing this sort of article to be released with such obvious errors.

.

The article is so badly written as to be incomprehensible; not just bad science, but incompetent sentence construction.

And worst of all, there is no information (not even a journal or author's name) that would take you to the primary source.

You are right to feel totally frustrated. Completely unprofessional writing at many levels.

Ugh, this sounds to me more like an essay handed in to a 9th grade teacher for social studies, not even a science class!

Bad Writing, absolutely. But I would actually like to address mofuonamotorcycle. I am a high school biology teacher, and I have a Master of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. In fact, all the science teachers in my department have at least a Bachelor of Science. I don't mean to sound nasty, but yours is a common misconception held by many people and it hurts not only our chosen profession, but our students when they do not believe we know and completely understand the science we are teaching.

Thank you

It is just plain bad writing. Either the writer who did the interview didn't know what questions to ask or didn't ask enough of them to get a clear picture of what they were writing about.

So sad that space.com would publish such a poor article, and that the Monitor would just pick it up as is. I would have expected better of both sources.

You are correct, this is definitely bad writing!

BTW @mofuonamotorcycle many science teachers do have real world science experience not to mention the amount of science education they receive greatly surpasses the amount of arts and "teaching" education they receive. So please don't talk about things you know nothing of.