Believe it or not, I actually have a life of some kind outside of this blog. Woa!
For those of you who don’t know, I am most of the way through earning a doctoral degree in occupational therapy with an emphasis on research methodology and biomechanics. My undergraduate degree is in philosophy, and I’m sure you’re surprised about that.
Since May I have been working in a biomechanics lab, largely doing nothing. I did, however, send my research paper off to the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for peer review and possible publication.
About a month after I sent the article off, I got it back with an attached 10 pages of comments. The peer reviewers were fairly pleasant in their comments and seemed genuinely interested in the research and in having it published, so if all goes well, I will let everyone know. Part of the rules of the journal is that I do not release my findings to the public until they approve of the publication.
In case you’ve never written a research article before, note that it is an arduous process. I probably have a total of 50+ drafts. My co-author is my mentor and run the lab, so I would write a draft, send it to him, and then he would make comments and send it back. Then I would edit the draft per his comments, send it to him, and he would make more comments and send it back, ad infinitum.
One of the most amusing aspects of this process concerns the words, “since” and “because”.
Initially, I had several sentences beginning with the word “because” and a few sentences began with, “Given that…”. After sending a draft off, I noticed that the draft was returned to me with all of the occurrences of “because” and “Given that…” changed to, “since”. I shrugged, approved of the changes and moved on – there is no sense in quibbling over details. I finished editing the draft and sent it back.
My mentor returned the draft to me, whereupon I had noted that all of the occurrences of “since” had been changed back to “because”. My mentor had also changed a sentence that did not begin with “because” around so that it did. Once again, I shrugged and made more important changes. I sent the draft off.
You probably know where this is going…
My mentor returned the draft to me again, and all the instances of “because” had been changed to “since”… AGAIN.
At this point, I sent off the draft to my friend Saint Gasoline. After that, I told my mentor that Saint Gasoline probably got the usage right, given that he works as a copy editor.
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Isn’t that the wonderful world of peer review? You’re writing a paper to everyone’s specifications and have to address everyone’s comments, which is wonderful when everyone has a different idea about how something should be said. I’ve been through that road before too, and am just about to embark upon it again. If it wasn’t as career-critical and academically important it would be downright silly.
The use of “since” versus “because” is a raging dispute in copyeditor circles!
Okay, not really.
Generally, copyeditors prefer to use “because” over “since.” However, most style manuals acknowledge that both can be used interchangeably, with the caveat that ambiguous uses of “since” should be avoided. Copyeditors, however, are usually more rigorous and like to nip such problems in the bud, so we use words in ways that remove ambiguity, using “since” only in reference to time periods (e.g., I haven’t done that since last summer) and “because” for everything else. This removes the possibility of constructing an ambiguous sentence in which it is unknown whether the time period use or the causation use of “since” is being used.
Here is an example of an ambiguous use:
Since I ate that amazingly tasty salad a few months ago, I have become fat.
The sentence could mean that the person has grown fat in the time period following eating a particularly memorable salad used as a historical marker in time. The sentence could also mean that the amazingly tasty salad was so amazing and tasty and full of calories that it caused the person to become fat. Copyeditors hate such ambiguity, and hence strike it down with furious vengeance, even going so far as to punish those innocent uses of “since” that are not ambiguous, for we are jealous gods of text, transfering the sins of the father “since” upon the heads of its children.
This is just WAY COOL! Nothing more to say ;-)
(And, yes, I DO know the ways of peer reviewed whatsoever)
The use of “since” versus “because” is a raging dispute in copyeditor circles!
Okay, not really.
Generally, copyeditors prefer to use “because” over “since.” However, most style manuals acknowledge that both can be used interchangeably, with the caveat that ambiguous uses of “since” should be avoided. Copyeditors, however, are usually more rigorous and like to nip such problems in the bud, so we use words in ways that remove ambiguity, using “since” only in reference to time periods (e.g., I haven’t done that since last summer) and “because” for everything else. This removes the possibility of constructing an ambiguous sentence in which it is unknown whether the time period use or the causation use of “since” is being used.
Here is an example of an ambiguous use:
Since I ate that amazingly tasty salad a few months ago, I have become fat.
The sentence could mean that the person has grown fat in the time period following eating a particularly memorable salad used as a historical marker in time. The sentence could also mean that the amazingly tasty salad was so amazing and tasty and full of calories that it caused the person to become fat. Copyeditors hate such ambiguity, and hence strike it down with furious vengeance, even going so far as to punish those innocent uses of “since” that are not ambiguous, for we are jealous gods of text, transfering the sins of the father “since” upon the heads of its children.
Good luck on getting the paper published. I hope it goes well for you.
I just (successfully) defended my master’s thesis this past Friday, and I encountered some similar frustrations from my advisor along the way. I would give him a draft, he would tell me to change part of it, I would make the changes and send it back to him, then schedule another meeting with him. More than once, he started off the meeting by pointing out some passage I had changed per his suggestions and saying something like “Why would you say this? I don’t know where you got that idea.”
Good luck on getting the paper published. I hope it goes well for you.
I just (successfully) defended my master’s thesis this past Friday, and I encountered some similar frustrations from my advisor along the way. I would give him a draft, he would tell me to change part of it, I would make the changes and send it back to him, then schedule another meeting with him. More than once, he started off the meeting by pointing out some passage I had changed per his suggestions and saying something like “Why would you say this? I don’t know where you got that idea.”