Buzzword Inflation refers to the overuse or misuse of fashionable scientific or technical terms, often to make a study appear more innovative, important, or rigorous than it truly is, without adding real clarity, insight, or methodological value.
🔍 Characteristics: Using trendy language (e.g., biomarker, connectomics, precision medicine, machine learning, big data, quantitative anomalies) in vague or unsupported ways.
Dressing up simple or descriptive findings in grandiose terminology.
Adding complex buzzwords to titles, abstracts, or conclusions to inflate perceived novelty.
🧠Why It Matters: Obscures scientific meaning and misleads readers.
Distracts peer reviewers and inflates publication appeal.
Erodes trust in the actual reproducibility or clinical relevance of findings.
Often signals a lack of methodological rigor or overinterpretation of weak data.
⚠️ Example: “Quantitative presurgical disruptions in contralateral limbic fasciculi were predictive of favorable neuromodulatory outcomes.”
➡️ Reality:
“We saw some signal noise in a white matter tract, and we’re not sure if it means anything.”
🧨 Summary: Buzzword inflation is the scientific version of marketing spin—an attempt to sell weak content with strong language.