"It has long been known..."

The first technical writers were scientists, naturalists, and early engineers. In graduate school, I was required to take a course in rhetorical theory as applied to technical and scientific writing. It would have been more interesting as a history of scientific and technical writing, but given it was not, I tried to learn how the use of rhetoric affects perception of meaning.

In the Chemistry section of About, the section guide has provided an illuminating look at some of common rhetorical tricks employed by today's scientific research writers. Below is a taste.

"It can be shown" Somebody said they did this, but I can't duplicate their results. I can't even find the reference, or else I would have cited that instead.

"It has long been known" I don't know the original reference.

"A trend is evident" Okay, a trend does seem apparent to me, but no statistical analysis in the world will support it.

"Of great theoretical and practical importance" ...it is interesting to me or else I want it to be interesting to somebody with money so they will fund my research.

"Although there are no definite answers to these questions..." My experiment failed, but I still want to get published.

"Three samples were selected for detailed study" Because the other ones sucked!