The question in the title was prompted by a comment I received on a previous Naturally Selected blog post about the three deadly sins of grant writing. The commenter chose to pick on my grammar in the post, insinuating that because, in her opinion the post exhibited poor grammar, I wasn’t to be listened to.
I’ll be clear up front (to stave off picky comments about it): if you’re writing a grant proposal (or a paper), it needs to have good grammar, punctuation, and spelling. For a blog post, this is also important, though by their nature, blog posts are less formal. So it does not matter as much.
But here’s the thing: you can hire any of many thousands of people who specialize in editing to fix your grammar on your next proposal, paper, or blog post (if you care to).
But you can’t hire any of many thousands of people to create your original ideas and research program for you, or to successfully direct the carrying out of that program through all the roadblocks and hurdles it will encounter.
There was the implicit assumption in the grammar critic’s comment that if one did not have proper grammar, one would fail.
I argue that the opposite is true. You or I can practice exceptional grammar and still fail to advance our careers. I know of plenty of people who are not perfect grammarians who have great careers. In fact, I can think of at least one former president of the US of A that wasn’t particularly keen on proper grammar, but who rose to what is arguably the highest position of all. You or I may not happen to like that former president, but it is hard to argue that he didn’t succeed in his own life.
The great danger I see in focusing on the particulars of grammar is that of getting trapped in a perfectionist thought loop akin to a Möbius strip.
To see what I mean, try this simple exercise out: draw a perfect circle.
Done yet?
Actually, that’s a rhetorical question, because I know you’ll never finish that exercise (unless you somehow can transcend our universe).
I know that you can’t finish because the laws of physics don’t allow us to do anything “perfectly” in this world – even something so simple as drawing that perfect circle. We can imagine it and write an equation for it – but we cannot make it manifest in our world, no matter how hard we try.
You could attempt to position the atoms of your circle perfectly, then poor old Werner Heisenberg would rise from his grave to cause them to slip and slide around to ill-defined positions (or ill-defined momentums – you choose, but you only get to pick one). For those who aren’t physicists, I’m making an oblique reference to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that says you cannot simultaneously define the position and momentum of any quantum (proton, neutron, electron, etc) to more than within Planck’s constant over 2. Period.
End of story. Perfection cannot be obtained – in circle drawing, in grammar, or in anything else for that matter.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen careers destroyed by the pursuit of perfection. The symptoms are easy to spot: the carrier is always working on that “perfect” project to get the “perfect” paper in one of the high-flying journals – and as a result, never closing the loop on much of anything at all.
This is far more pernicious than a bit of sloppy grammar, which can be readily fixed with some training or by an editor.
Please don’t let perfectionism ruin your life. Good grammar is fine, and certainly won’t hurt you. But it won’t be the driver of your success. The drivers of your success are things like:
- Persistence in the face of difficulties
- Building up your confidence
- Working hard but not too hard (it is essential to take breaks)
- Learning to effectively communicate your successes to others (i.e. marketing them)
If you haven’t grabbed it yet, I’ve written up a short report on other ways to avoid failure and get success in your science career: http://scifoundry.com /
—————–
Morgan Giddings, PhD recently gave up her tenured faculty job at a major medical institution, choosing a smaller university to continue her research while having time to help others achieve satisfaction and success in their science careers.
The question in the title was prompted by a comment I received on a previous Naturally Selected blog post about the three deadly sins of grant writing. The commenter chose to pick on my grammar in the post, insinuating that because, in her opinion the post exhibited poor grammar, I wasn’t to be listened to.
I’ll be clear up front (to stave off picky comments about it): if you’re writing a grant proposal (or a paper), it needs to have good grammar, punctuation, and spelling. For a blog post, this is also important, though by their nature, blog posts are less formal. So it does not matter as much.
But here’s the thing: you can hire any of many thousands of people who specialize in editing to fix your grammar on your next proposal, paper, or blog post (if you care to).
But you can’t hire any of many thousands of people to create your original ideas and research program for you, or to successfully direct the carrying out of that program through all the roadblocks and hurdles it will encounter.
There was the implicit assumption in the grammar critic’s comment that if one did not have proper grammar, one would fail.
I argue that the opposite is true. You or I can practice exceptional grammar and still fail to advance our careers. I know of plenty of people who are not perfect grammarians who have great careers. In fact, I can think of at least one former president of the US of A that wasn’t particularly keen on proper grammar, but who rose to what is arguably the highest position of all. You or I may not happen to like that former president, but it is hard to argue that he didn’t succeed in his own life.
The great danger I see in focusing on the particulars of grammar is that of getting trapped in a perfectionist thought loop akin to a Möbius strip.
To see what I mean, try this simple exercise out: draw a perfect circle.
Done yet?
Actually, that’s a rhetorical question, because I know you’ll never finish that exercise (unless you somehow can transcend our universe).
I know that you can’t finish because the laws of physics don’t allow us to do anything “perfectly” in this world – even something so simple as drawing that perfect circle. We can imagine it and write an equation for it – but we cannot make it manifest in our world, no matter how hard we try.
You could attempt to position the atoms of your circle perfectly, then poor old Werner Heisenberg would rise from his grave to cause them to slip and slide around to ill-defined positions (or ill-defined momentums – you choose, but you only get to pick one). For those who aren’t physicists, I’m making an oblique reference to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that says you cannot simultaneously define the position and momentum of any quantum (proton, neutron, electron, etc) to more than within Planck’s constant over 2. Period.
End of story. Perfection cannot be obtained – in circle drawing, in grammar, or in anything else for that matter.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen careers destroyed by the pursuit of perfection. The symptoms are easy to spot: the carrier is always working on that “perfect” project to get the “perfect” paper in one of the high-flying journals – and as a result, never closing the loop on much of anything at all.
This is far more pernicious than a bit of sloppy grammar, which can be readily fixed with some training or by an editor.
Please don’t let perfectionism ruin your life. Good grammar is fine, and certainly won’t hurt you. But it won’t be the driver of your success. The drivers of your success are things like:
If you haven’t grabbed it yet, I’ve written up a short report on other ways to avoid failure and get success in your science career: http://scifoundry.com /
—————–
Morgan Giddings, PhD recently gave up her tenured faculty job at a major medical institution, choosing a smaller university to continue her research while having time to help others achieve satisfaction and success in their science careers.