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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richard Klim" data-source="post: 1749757" data-attributes="member: 773">Of course exclamation marks aren't illegal - I use them myself, far too often!  But it's unusual to see them used so liberally in a 'scientific paper'.  To quote the Oxford Dictionary of English:Or, more pointedly, from The Guardian Book of English Language:Scientific papers present and discuss evidence, and draw evidence-based conclusions - this shouldn't require the protracted use of emotive language.  I'd picked on this one aspect to illustrate my point, but the report is littered with distinctly unscientific language.  Just one other random example:For such a key point, one would expect a scientific paper to provide some discussion of the over-water distances involved.  Instead, the report unhelpfully resorts to hyperbole (again, unusual in a scientific paper), quantifying the distances to all three nations as "a mere stone's throw".[Incidentally, elsewhere in the report a random mix of imperial and metric distance units is used - very unusual practice in a scientific paper...]My original comment was restricted to Raptor Politics' counterproductive hyping of the report as a 'scientific paper'.  Given the unscientific presentation and language immediately apparent on reading the document, this unnecessary claim seriously reduced its credibility for me, despite starting with an open mind (and I'm sure that many others with a science background will have formed similar impressions).  Why not simply present the report as a 'review' or 'discussion paper'?Richard</blockquote>

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