h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Necrotizing Fasciitis: Streptococcus pyogenes Gone Astray - A876701
Author: Farlander - U206300

hello. perhaps you have stumbled upon my other article (the one about legionella), and think that i'm being obsessively morbid about morbidity; however, i think there are certain things the public should know about certain infectious diseases however, i know that i'm not very good at writing articles for non-biologists yet (i'm working on it), so if you have any comments regarding the flow of the article, i would really like to hear from you. thanks.

Hi there Farlander!

Are you sure your not overly morbid ? Now I can't go into an air conditioned building OR go outside...

Here's my tuppence worth:

I suspect that I'm not the only reader who will not immediately recognise terms such as bullae, Gram-positive and phagocytosed (and a few dozen more)

I have a hunch that Billroth, Rosenbach, Brown and Lancefield aren't as well known as Hippocrates and Pasteur

From Hyaluronidase onwards I'm well on the way to getting rather lost and being told that << it is an enzyme that liquefies the hyaluronic acid component of the &c ... >> doesn't help I'm afraid

How about *wounds to the skin* rather than << trauma: includes cuts, burns, penetrating injuries, blunt trauma operative sites, enterostomy 11, decubitus or venous stasis ulcers, and diabetic feet >> ?

<< do not panic unnecessarily ... the chances of you developing necrotizing fasciitis in your lifetime (if you are a healthy individual) are very, very small >>
These comforting words are buried ( ) a bit too deeply I think

Fascinating reading I must say, although definitely on the heavy side (technically) compared to most Edited entries I have read


six7s

erm, regarding the definition of the technical words, i've placed footnotes explaining what each word means - it leads directly from the word. maybe i should change the format and table all the words as a glossary instead? i'd do anchor links, but i don't think the guide supports them.
i'll see what i can do to lighten the language, though. thanks for the input!
oh, and re: the relatively low risk of catching the disease... well, always tell 'em the truth... i guess . don't worry. put on a gas mask and a veil, then you can breathe - so long as you don't inhale. (tom lehrer)

done that. maybe you could drop by and tell me what you think?

Hi Farlander. .

I liked this entry because it really helped me understand this conditiion. I do think that i might have a head start knowing what most of the jargon means though.

I have to say that it isn't really usual for EG entries to have academic style references. I did managed to include a couple A830413 in this entry so that someone who was interested could go and do some futher reading. But I did have to include an explanation in the first one as to why I was putting it in the Vancover style.

The thing is in the House Rules it states that Edited Entry's can only link to other edited entry's, so you can't really solve hte problem by the

Ok this wasn't a real sciency entry but I still wanted to make it to a standard that I could hand in at University. There are plenty of scientfic entries in the guide such as this one A835409 on pressure which goes into quiet a lot of detail. Do stick at it though because what you've written so far is really really good IMHO.

thanks . would you believe it, i've only just discovered that a footnote link can take you both to the footnote and back, instead of just being one-way, so i think maybe i can just bung all the definitions in there. the refs are still a prob. i suppose i could use the reference tag for those that have links, such as online articles and journal papers, but some of the stuff was taken from books; also, i was taught that not putting refs for stuff you quoted eg data constitutes plagiarism . (even though i've never used nything but the *ideas* - writer ego, i guess ) so my conflict is still unresolved.
but again, thanks for dropping by, and thanks for the input!

Thanks, that's what I was taught as well for formal academic writing but on H2G2 people don't tend to do that.

AFAIK, if it's uses information from a diffent source then that's fine as long as you don't directly quote the information. If you combine information from several sources and then put it in your own words then you don't need to reference it. I find the purpose of links and references to be a further reading section. A start for someone who wants to find out more about the subject.


H2G2 writing isn't writing in the academic style so the rules are different I tend to just avoid using jargon at all.

Another thing about footnotes is if you hover a mouse over them then the text appears and you don't need to scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Bascially i think you can just use the references tag for those that are links and get rid of the others.

i keep on learning new things about what guideml can do... and to think that i once thought it wasn't half as great as html
thanks for your help on the ref bit... reckon i'll start doing that from now on, i think i'll ameliorate the readers's carpal tunnel syndrome a bit

Hi, nice work, very informative.

The only comment I can make is what others have pointed out already (but I just felt like doing it again): it's way too technical. Even with the footnotes it's pretty difficult, not to say impossible, to grasp for a novice.

Now he/she might get an inkling about this when reading the title (which I would suggest you replace with something catchier, although I'm not sure what ) but this is something I would sooner expect to read in The Lancet - which I don't read BTW - than here.

I would really suggest to rewrite the thing in layman's terms. Having looked briefly over your other entries I know you can do it

thanks... will try to rewrite and tone down the science language

Could I suggest for a title "Carnivorous Bacteria" or "Bacterial Carnivores" ?

Just a thought,

JAIB

well... if you define 'carnivorous' as digesting animal proteins and other components, then many bacteria can be considered carnivores. if i were to use that title, i'd have to write about just about every other pathogen around (hmm, that's a thought). still, it's a catchy little title. i'll see what i can do. thanks
by the way i have toned down things quite a lot, although it was quite a wrench still, it's all in the name of good...

Well you could always go for Killer flesh eating bugs..

or would that be cheapening at a bit?

that's a good one you don't charge green writers anything for providing them with titles, do you? lol thanks

Hi Farlander!

It's looking better

I still don't understand half of it, but at least that half is smaller than it was

what cheek!
maybe i should shorten the article to: there are a number of bacteria that can eat your flesh. strep pyogenes is one of them. if you are not cured in time, you will die.
would make more sense and strain less eyes, no? (everything is now squished into footnotes)
thanks for coming by again. maybe you might want to read my new, non-disease-related article A885062?

Ooh don't be silly of course I don't, Im at the moment struggling with a scienfic entry that I'm trying to make accesable and at the same time not really sure that I've got right scienfically.

I love the new title and think this is on the whole a great piece of work.



A few comments. I suspect your boxes may be non-standard for EG entries? A sub-editor would know better.

Attack of the killer footnotes. There are too many - with medical terminology such as bullae, I really don't think you lose anything from just using the more common definition in the text. I saw your Don't Panic section on the vocabulary but I think that many of these could be translated into more common terms. I would keep only those that are really necessary, with the footnotes.

I think personally that one of the interesting challenges of writing for Hootoo is expressing oneself with the bare minimum of jargon or specialised terms. The percentage of people on H2G2 who will gain anything from the more precise term is minimal, I suspect.

The description of the surgery is great - it's really grisly and is guaranteed to make a few people lose their lunch when it appears on the front page!

I like the read more section but don't think you need the pathogenic bit or the bibliography - the former is too specialised and the latter makes it look like an academic paper.

Sprout

Hey farlander. . .

As a fellow science geek (I'm of the medical variety), I certainly appreciate the entry.

When you reread your entry (one small bit at a time) remember what the average reader would understand. Your footnotes are tremendously helpful, but a non-science reader may lack the patience to run back and forth.

Unfortunately there is really no solution for that problem. I've run ion to that situation myself in writing articles.

On the other hand, you have a great topic, an engaging writing style and a lot of great info to pass on to the readers.

The trick is to continue refining the work so that is becomes even MORE accessible. You're doing great work, keep it up!

It's challenging to write in a non-jargon fashion. So keep your chin up and keep shortening and sweetening your article.

On a different note, I didn't read the piece as carefully as I will in the near future (I'm at the hospital now and trying to dodge prying eyes. . .), but did you mention the correlation between recent surgery (especially Ob/Gyn) with S.pyogenes infx?

Friar

yeah, i know... that science fact vs accessibility conflict has been plaguing me right from day one... i've tried to hack it down, then decided to bung it somewhere else instead, which doesn't solve *anything*...