Elegance in Science Writing?

A short piece in Nature popped up on my Twitter feed this morning called "A call for beautiful prose in papers". You can read it here:

http://www.nature.com/news/a-call-for-beautiful-prose-in-papers-1.16778?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews

I found it interesting for a number of reasons. As a journal and manuscript editor, I can see both sides of the debate mentioned in the article: Elegant science writing (so long as it's clear) would not be a bad thing, even in a research article. Such elegance, however, would need to be carefully balanced against creating linguistic and cultural pitfalls that would make it more difficult for the many scientists who are non-native speakers of English to understand the nuances of what they're reading. 

Another issue as well: many (most?) people, scientists and non-scientists alike, find writing hard enough as it is. Are there consequences for these folks if we start setting the bar that much higher?

Food for thought for your Friday!

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