Ellen Goodman interviewed me about ten years ago and published what I thought was the best press coverage on my research on the effects of footwear on musculoskeletal health. It was far better and more in depth than the coverage of my work in the New York Times, USA Today, and even a full episode on ABC’s 20/20. Ellen’s article is the only one that I ever framed and hung up in my office. At the time, I did not know who Ellen Goodman was (I didn’t get out much). But since then, I read her articles regularly and found each one to be nothing less than inspiring. She delivered information in a way that led me to gradually change the way I wrote scientific articles, or at least wanted to write scientific articles.
There is a certain style to scientific writing which one has to adhere to consisting of four parts: (1) introduction, (2) methods, (3) results and (4) discussion. You are not cool with the journal reviewers if you go on and on in the introduction and the discussion about what motivated you to do the study and what you think are the implications of the study. But I always find those two things of any study to be the most interesting. A researcher could have done a million different studies– I care why he/she did that one particular study. And I care about what the researcher thinks insofar as the implications of the study, because often times, and certainly in my case, the researcher is the last person on Earth to accept and try to work around, the status quo.
Ellen said in her article what I had wanted to say in my research articles but couldn’t. I am looking forward to this blog being a direct means for me to discuss the motivation and implications of all the research I did on walking, running and footwear over the last 20 years – which led to the development of OESH. I often cringe when I read some of the interpretations of my research especially when it’s in the form of an advertisement for something that I don’t think is good. I’ve never blogged before and I’ve never made a single comment on any article or blog. But now in my journey to translate all that 20 years’ research into OESH, I think it is time I start blogging.
