The intelligibility test

Perhaps the mathematicians feel the intelligibility test as acutely as any. A recent cartoon in the December 1998 issue of The Emissary, showing a mathematician being pelted by rotten tomatoes, has the caption ``Let M be an ensemble of matrices with a measure ...''.

Researchers are increasingly encouraged to explain their work in plain language, to make their work intelligible to the public and to the overseers of the funding programs. In one way this is a very positive development, in that it reflects a public and political eagerness to become involved. But it can also be stifling. Very often, if research has reached the stage where it is ready to be made clear to a non-expert, it is essentially finished research. The intelligibility test cannot easily capture, except in retrospect, the creative throes at the beginning of research. I worry about this particularly in connection with new researchers. The application form for the Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award, for new researchers, says only that a 150 word summary in plain language must be given. But the instructions for the first round of proposals given to our applicants internally went further:

[The proposal] is not written for a committee of your peers as are proposals to NSERC/SSHRC/MRC. It will be reviewed first by civil servants in the Ministry ...then by the PREA Board ...generally the committee is composed of experts in bio-technology, engineering and information technology. Both of these groups of individuals should be regarded as intelligent generalists ...Therefore, the proposal must be written in general language that these individuals can understand.

UW internal memo, 1998

And the oral instructions went further still: don't use technical terms or acronyms; try to tell a story which will capture the imagination. In later rounds, the intelligibility requirement has given way to an executive summary requirement, with applicants being asked to cut their detailed research proposals down from five pages to two!

The CFI has a standard application form, to be filled out by all, including new researchers applying for equipment under the new opportunities program. For each of ten categories, the applicant must choose a phrase from a menu of phrases, and take up to a page to justify the chosen phrase. The intention is to enable the application to be judged by non-experts:

The assessment section gives the applicant the opportunity to assess the project against each of the CFI criteria in a structured way, using the ProGrid^TM methodology, which is a combined application/evaluation tool.

ProGrid is a procedure for measuring the value of intangible assets, where precise numerical information is not available. It is a decision-assist tool customized to the needs of the CFI ... Reviewers will evaluate the merit of the project using the same methodology.

Seasoned applicants appear to take this new kind of form in stride, though privately regarding it perhaps as an invitation to new levels of perjury. But perhaps a new researcher, at the outset of a program which could go anywhere, should be excused from this kind of exercise.

Apparently even NSERC has been assaulted by the rotten tomatoes of the clamour for plain language once too often, as evidenced by this quote >from the French edition of the most recent issue of Contact:

Just call us ``En'serk'' - spelled ``NSERC'' -

Even other federal departments have been known to get the English version of our name wrong ...

Ce texte n'a pas été traduit, car son contenu ne peut être compris que dans la langue de Shakespeare.

CRSNG Contact Printemps 1999

Further up in the text, francophone readers, members of the scientifically educated public, are told that they, like their anglophone counterparts, need no longer remember what CRSNG stands for.

But of course there is a more positive way of looking at that other academic imperative, the imperative to communicate, and I will let a writer on mathematics have the last word (Allyn Jackson of the AMS and MSRI):

...What do mathematicians hope to accomplish by influencing media coverage of their subject? If the hope is that increased media coverage will translate into increased financial support for mathematics, that hope might be misplaced. Consider the example of NASA, whose highly successful public relations organization captivated the nation with full-color footage of space exploration but whose budget has shrunk dramatically in recent years. Is celebrity the goal? It is hard to imagine that many mathematicians yearn for the harsh and fickle limelight accorded to celebrities today. Perhaps the aim is simpler: To edify the public about an important part of human culture. This is the most exalted and difficult goal of all. What it requires is a new orientation for media coverage of mathematics, one that makes a place for all the important developments in mathematics, not just the most easily explainable. It also requires mathematicians to think deeply about how to describe in plain terms why these developments are important. The media, with their newfound attention to mathematics, may well be ready to listen.

The Emissary, December 1998