Dr. Sherman has issued a timely warning to his fellow researchers: to take care with the reporting of their findings so that they will not be open to misinterpretation. An even greater dilemma, not canvassed by him, is the extent to which they are responsible for secondary reports of their work. What safeguards should and can researchers take to ensure that the cautionary qualifiers and statistical details present in the original work are retained, that the competing interpretations explored continue to be treated as such and are not changed to assertions which are much stronger than intended by the primary author(s)?
Much pressure is put on educational researchers in particular to help disseminate their work among those who do not regularly (or ever) read technical reports or refereed journals. Pleas for articles that summarise research findings in language readily acceptable to and understood by an interested lay public are common. Sometimes researchers themselves work on these similar versions of their work. In these instances it is their challenge, and as Dr. Sherman appropriately points out, their responsibility, how to translate succinctly yet accurately the information covered in the fuller work. At other times, however, the abbreviated, condensed or simplified versions are written by others who rarely show their product to the original authors for approval.
It is highly unlikely that the young girl whose comments about accepting that she was "no good at maths" apparently prompted Dr. Sherman's note, read the catalyst statement in a refereed journal or even in one put out by a professional teachers' association. It is far more likely that she was reacting to a statement in the popular press.
Coverage in the popular press of issues focussed on mathematics students has been examined by several workers. After surveying 50 articles that featured outstanding mathematics students Leder (1986) concluded: "While media coverage of young mathematicians was infrequent, collectively (the) articles reflected the themes found in the more conventional researcti literature" (p. 22). Not surprisingly, possible sex differences in mathematics learning was one such theme.