>
> >You may be falling into a fallacy there,   No doubt your read by many,
> your facts and information precede you,  but that does not mean all like or
> can, follow your writing style.


Again, you're not following logic--your comment was an example of the
fallacy called "special pleading"--you moved the goalposts from Gene's
claim that no one other than one's advisor would read writing that follows
strict logic, to a new goalpost that it had to be entertaining.   I get the
feeling that I'm wasting my time in this thread : )

I'm well aware of writing style, and never claimed to be an engaging
writer.  There are far more engaging writers and speakers (I've often told
Jim Tew how much I enjoy his presentations).  Yet my website and research
are supported by voluntary donations continually coming in from those who
appreciate logical, information-dense writing.

In ABJ, space is limited, and there is strong pressure to keep articles
short.  One must then decide upon the trade off between entertainment and
sharing information.  The feedback that I get tells me to continue with
information, rather than wasting words with style.  I typically have nearly
a year's worth of articles researched and partially written in advance.  If
I were to focus upon engaging style, I wouldn't be able to share half the
information that I do.

And then there's the the readership.  I once had a very successful
businessman who had gotten into beekeeping complain about my use of "long
words" in my articles.  So I printed out a couple of articles and asked him
to circle examples of the long words.  He returned the articles with dozens
and dozens of words circled--not technical terms, but words that I
considered to be basic vocabulary.  That was really an eye-opener for me.
Since then I try to be considerate to my readership.  I don't write for the
academic elite; I write for Joe Beekeeper who picks only a few articles out
of each ABJ to read.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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