Interlude: Growth, Hyphens, and Extremely Productive Authors

This past weekend, I spent some time in my hometown. It is a beautiful little town nestled along a river in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

While I was there, a lot of memories surfaced, reminding me of "the old days." Swimming in the river, frolicking in the mountains, gathering with the community.

As I reflected on these memories, I realized how much I have grown since I lived there. And I noticed how sometimes I take that growth for granted.

I think that this same phenomenon can happen with our writing. We often focus on what can be improved (how far we need to go) rather than what we have already accomplished (how far we've come).

If you're feeling this way, open a draft of something that you wrote several years ago and reflect on how your writing has grown. If you're new to writing, pull up an early draft that you crafted and notice how your writing improved with each draft.

I think we can learn a lot about our writing and ourselves by occasionally reflecting on our hard work and accomplishments. So here's a gentle nudge to pause for a moment to think about how you've grown in your writing and in your life.

Now onto this week's round-up...

💌 Round-up

💻 From My Desk

​How to Use Hyphens to Create Connections and Clarity in Your Writing​
Hyphens are powerful tools for adding clarity to your writing. They link words and word components to help readers easily connect and understand concepts. But how do you know when to use a hyphen in your scientific and medical writing?

👓 Reading

Rise in “extremely productive” authors sparks concern​
"...the number of extremely productive authors – defined as those who publish the equivalent of more than 60 papers a year – has almost quadrupled since a previous analysis carried out in 2018. . . Based on raw citation counts, extremely productive authors now account for 44% of the 10,000 most-cited authors across all areas of science."

​Exploring the potential of ChatGPT in the peer review process: An observational study​
"ChatGPT can complement human scientific peer review, enhancing efficiency and promptness in the editorial process. However, a fully automated AI review process is currently not advisable, and ChatGPT's role should be regarded as highly constrained for the present and near future."

​The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Writing Scientific Review Articles​
"Overall, use of AI decreased the time spent to write the review article, but required more extensive fact checking. With the AI-only approach, up to 70% of the references cited were found to be inaccurate. Interestingly, the AI-assisted approach resulted in the highest similarity indices suggesting a higher likelihood of plagiarism. Finally, although the technology is rapidly changing, at the time of study, ChatGPT 4.0 had a cutoff date of September 2021 rendering identification of recent articles impossible."

💬 Quote

"The simplest way to clarify your thinking is to write a full page about whatever you are dealing with and then delete everything except the 1-2 sentences that explain it best." – James Clear

Thank you so much for reading.

Warmly,

Crystal