Good communication is essential part of educational process

EDITOR—The first Education and debate section of the new millennium was very educational in a way that was almost certainly not anticipated or intended by either the staff of the journal (unless they were being very mischievous) or the authors of the papers concerned.1 2 In the paper by Lilford et al 1 the study under discussion was clearly defined, but unfortunately in the paper by Mays et al 2 I was not able, after reading the paper three times, to find a definition of the type of research being discussed anywhere.

The style of the paper by Lilford et al allowed an easy understanding of the thesis being developed, but the same could not be said of the paper by Mays et al, which seemed to lack a clearly discernible logic in relation to the case being made. The paper was replete with jargon and many strangely unscientific terms, which made it difficult to read—such as “epistemological,” “extreme relativists,” “antirealist,” “reflexivity,” “inductive inquiries,” and “subtle realism.” No such …