Glossary for Research Reports

When they write ... What they REALLY mean is ...
It has long been known that ... I haven't bothered to look up the original reference
... of great theoretical and practical importance ... interesting to me
While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions ... The experiment didn't work out, but I figured I could at least get a publication out of it
The W-Pb system was chosen as especially suitable to show the predicted behavior The fellow in the next lab had some already made up
High purity... Very high purity... Extremly high purity... Spectroscopically pure... Composition unkown except for the exagerated supplier claims of
Three of the samples were chosen for the detailed study ... The results of the others didn't make sense and were ignored
... accidentally strained during mounting ... dropped on the floor
... handled with extreme care ... not dropped on the floor throughout the experiments
Typical results are shown ... the best results are shown ...
Presumably at longer time ... I didn't take time to find out
The agreement with the predicted curve is excellent/good/satisfactory/fair fair/poor/doubtful/imaginary
... as good as could be expected non-existent
These results will be reported at a later date I might possibly get around to this sometime
The most reliable values are those of Jones He was a student of mine
It is generally believed that ... A couple of other guys think so too
It might be argued that ... I have such a good answer for this objection that I shall now raise it
It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding ... I don't understand it
Unfortunately, a quantitative theory to account for this has not been formulated Neither does anybody else
Correct within an order of magnitude Wrong
It is hoped that this work will stimulate further work in the field This paper isn't very good, but neither are any others in this miserable subject
Thanks are to Joe Glotz for assistance with the experiments and to John Doe for valuable discussions Glotz did the work and Doe explained what it meant