Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
The study was scientific and so has to meet certain rigorous standards. The language used to describe it becomes specialized for that reason. It's usually the job of science journalists to translate for the layman, but unfortunately sensationalist writing is trumping accuracy in that field as drawing more eyeballs becomes a priority.
There was an unexpected conclusion from the study. It was hypothesized that people reading SF would put more effort into world building in their minds since it's usually quite different from what we're used to, but surprisingly that wasn't generally the case. My guess is that most people read SF for fun, and when they read SF-specific details, they are absorbed more for setting the mood rather than scrutinized for important information.
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I would have to disagree with you. If the purpose of the study was to test if there was any differences between reading "narrative realism" and "science fiction", more of an effort not to introduce extraneous influences would have been made. So please don't trumpet that it has to meet rigorous standards. The differences between the written items which, IMNSHO, introduces irrelevant variables makes any such statement risible. Remembering some of my old university courses, to quote one professor's favourite phrase "any conclusions drawn from your study would be highly suspect".
Are we going to pretend that terms such as corporal and ensign (and nevermind what the
expletive deleted is the lowest rank of commissioned officer—also referred to as an officer and a gentleman or an larval officer depending on your prejudices—I've left out other less complementary terms such as 90-day wonders—is doing waiting on tables in a restaurant serving enlisted personnel) are in common use in science fiction other than stories set in military or military-style settings? Letter to the editor vs. message to Command? Mrs. Moyer consistently through the text vs. Engineer Grady in the first paragraph and Grady with no honorific after that? I did find that the description of using a stylus to handwrite his letter to the editor humourous. Are there no keyboards real or touch in that future?
Personally, when I read science fiction, I pay attention to the details of the world building. Oddly, most of my favoured authors have done the same. I look at the effort Hal Clement put into such an unlikely worlds as Mesklin or Iceworld as examples. Calling that patische science fiction could only be done by someone who read little science fiction and didn't much like what he/she read.