Too Much Impact

I must protest the practice by authors of using the word impact to mean influence or effect. Impact should describe a collision, and impacted should describe teeth. This trend may have started in advertising, perhaps by a writer .who wanted to add forcefulness to his writing. The influence of this trend can now be felt in scientific writing, and has had an adverse effect on communication. If things get worse, scientific articles may become like certain newspaper ads. That contain incomplete

Written byRobert Erok

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I must protest the practice by authors of using the word impact to mean influence or effect. Impact should describe a collision, and impacted should describe teeth.

This trend may have started in advertising, perhaps by a writer .who wanted to add forcefulness to his writing. The influence of this trend can now be felt in scientific writing, and has had an adverse effect on communication. If things get worse, scientific articles may become like certain newspaper ads. That contain incomplete sentences. For impact.

ROBERT EROK
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, IIL 60439

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