Weird Science

I spent most of yesterday finally doing my 'homework' from last week's scientific editing course - a brain-crushing undertaking.

I had to try to render intelligible a horribly garbled, rambling, and insubstantial study on fish. Someone, it seems (and - terrifyingly - I'm sure this test piece was adapted from an actual research paper), had been trying to monitor changes in the physiological condition of fish over time by attaching a tiny data logger to their backs to record their ECG. Someone with a very imperfect grasp of English and a decidedly shaky concept of scientific method (I suspect a Japanese - they do a lot of work on fish!). The chief change noted was that, after a week or so, the fish died - as a result of attaching the data logger to them. Not that the sample was all that compelling. They only tried it on half a dozen fish, only managed to recover two of them, and seemingly only had usable results from one (and there was some doubt even about that, because they'd wired the data logger up wrongly, and so the ECG trace came out 'reversed').

I was tempted to begin my editor's letter to the author 'Dear Fish-Murderer'.... but I restrained myself.

I am, however, deeply pessimistic about whether this kind of work is ever going to be a useful revenue stream for me. It is mind-buggeringly difficult, and far too time-consuming for the pay rates on offer. Maybe it will get easier in time.....

Or maybe I will just go mad!

Maybe that's already happened....