Writing Science in Plain English, Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Writing Science in Plain English, Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

An updated edition of the essential guide for all scientists—from undergraduates to senior scholars—who want to produce prose that anyone can understand. Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as biologist and experienced teacher of scientific writing Anne E. Greene shows in Writing Science in Plain English , writers from all scientific disciplines can learn to produce clear, concise prose by mastering just a few simple principles. This short, focused guide presents roughly a dozen such principles based on what readers need to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, organized paragraphs, and correct sentence structure. Greene illustrates each principle with real-life examples of both good and bad writing and shows how bad writing might be improved. She ends each chapter with revision exercises (and provides suggested answers in a separate key) so that readers can come away with new writing skills after just one sitting. To help readers understand the grammatical terms used in the book, an appendix offers a refresher course on basic grammar. For this second edition , Greene has incorporated the latest research on what makes writing effective and engaging and has revised or replaced exercises and exercise keys where needed. She has also added new features that make it easier to navigate the book. A new resource for instructors who use Writing Science in Plain English in their classes is a free, online teacher’s guide. Drawn from Greene’s long experience teaching students how to write science clearly, the teacher’s guide provides additional lectures, assignments, and activities that will inform and enliven any class. “One of our biggest challenges as scientific writers has to be overcoming the temptation to write [with] jargon . . . and impenetrable complexity. This short book offers help (including exercises). Everyone—yes, everyone —should take advantage.” -- Stephen B. Heard ― Scientist Sees Squirrel, on the First Edition “In these . . . brisk pages, Greene manages to deliver a series of practical, hands-on lessons to make scientific prose more lucid, more direct, more immediately comprehensible, and, yes, more concise.” ― Science Editor, on the First Edition "A great resource for anyone preparing to embark on scientific writing—whether a paper for class or a research article submitted for publication." ― Choice, on the First Edition "Greene’s feet are placed firmly on the ground. Her recommendations are widely applicable, and the solid ideas presented in this book should influence good use of English in any situation. Scientists should treat Writing Science as a user manual to keep their writing on track." ― Journal of Scholarly Publishing, on the First Edition "I feel like I have found a reference to keep on my shelf for the rest of my career. . . . In fact, after reading Writing Science in Plain English , I want to go back and edit every journal article I have ever written." ― ESA.org's SciComm Lit Review, on the First Edition "Writing in science has reached an all-time nadir and has become practically unintelligible to all but specialists in narrow fields. Professional articles on science are burdened by cumbersome expression, poor grammar, and a concomitant lack of precision and clarity. Accordingly, there is a great need for a primer of scientific writing. The brief book Writing Science in Plain English addresses that need." ― Integrative and Comparative Biology, on the First Edition "This slim, modestly priced volume should be of practical use for anyone who writes about science and struggles to do so better—or who teaches others who are similarly struggling. . . . This book is chock full of concrete examples using scientific material that illustrate issues in identifying the right audience, level of formality (or 'register'), and tone; telling a story and using active voice; word choice and the elimination of excess words; and organizing sentences, lists, paragraphs, and entire pieces effectively." ― Science Communication, on the First Edition "[Greene's] wisdom seems almost endless: use the same terms for the same thing; don’t use technical terms if your audience won’t understand them; avoid non-parallelism; vary sentence length to avoid monotony; cutout superfluous words (including the ); use transition words such as however and therefore to guide the reader; replace wordy phrases with single words. It really reads like a‘What’s What’ of good writing." ― Medical Writing, on the First Edition "As one might expect from the title, Writing Science in Plain English is clear, concise, and very easy to understand. In fact, it’s one of the best books on writing I’ve come across. If you only read one book on science writing, make it this one." ― Edge for Scholars, on the First Edition "Greene’s book is an excellent, concise guide to writing science in simple language. .