Writing patterns for the web and the future of scientific writing

A recent post in the Sydney Morning Herald stated that half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on a mobile phone. This is a trend that one cannot ignore and that will likely affect other areas of communication over time.

In scientific writing, the diffusion of research information to the general public will certainly have to be streamlined, customized to be digestible in small chuncks. But then, the primary source of information for researchers themselves will also have to revised. This does not mean that it will be shortened, but will likely become split across different lengths and depths depending on the audience and their purposes. So, for a general practitioner interested in the latest guideline to treat a patient seating in front of her, a short text will do along with an assurance that the source is reliable and current.

A second, and completely different case is a researcher designing a clinical trial that relies on a few previous articles. Here, the amount of information has to clearly exceed what is provided in our current standard publications. Not only the researcher needs a description of the methods, but also access to researcher minutes, documentation from coordinators regarding problems with the trial, raw data and statistical scripts, to mention just a few items. In sum, scientific information will probably have to be stratified according to its final intended use and purpose.