As described previously

Greetings Earthlings!

For this blog post, I urge you to close the PhD Comics/xkcd window that you have open and open http://www.nature.com. (Dude, if you don't know what comes up if you type this in the address bar, make sure your advisor doesn't know about it. (S)He'll have a fit.) There's a "Search" tool on the top right side of the page.

Click¹ on the "Advanced search" option and type in the search term "as previously described" and from the drop-down menu² menu, select "The exact phrase" and click¹ on "Submit". If you have followed the instructions to a tee, this is what you should see:

->24,158 results for "as described previously"

Now do the same for "as previously described" as described previously².

->22,531 results for "as previously described"

What this probably means is that there are a lot of half-sane people out there who are desperately looking for a protocol, but are not finding it where it should be! Why Nature even allows something like this is beyond me.

Until journals take a stand against incomplete and ambiguous protocols, be assured that you are going to play a never ending game of Hide (by the protocol writers) and Seek (which you will try with little luck).

Until next time,

Visual Acuity.

¹ Take the cursor to it and press down down hard on the mouse at the place where your index finger is.

² That thingy that has an arrow pointing down. When you click¹ on it, it magically gives you a list of options.

³See how infuriating this is??