Chicago Guide to Communicating Science

Whether you are a graduate student or a senior scientist, your reputation rests on the ability to communicate your ideas and data. In this straightforward and accessible guide, Scott L. Montgomery offers detailed, practical advice on crafting every sort of scientific communication, from research papers and conference talks to review articles, interviews with the media, e-mail messages, and more. Montgomery avoids the common pitfalls of other guides by focusing not on rules and warnings but instead on how skilled writers and speakers actually learn their trade-by imitating and adapting good models of expression. Moving step-by-step through samples from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, he shows precisely how to choose and employ such models, where and how to revise different texts, how to use visuals to enhance your presentation of ideas, why writing is really a form of experimentation, and more.

He also traces the evolution of scientific expression over time, providing a context crucial for understanding the nature of technical communication today. Other chapters take up the topics of writing creatively in science; how to design and use graphics; and how to talk to the public about science. Written with humor and eloquence, this book provides a unique and realistic guide for anyone in the sciences wishing to improve his or her communication skills.

Practical and concise, The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science covers:

*Writing scientific papers, abstracts, grant proposals, technical reports, and articles for the general public

*Using graphics effectively

*Surviving and profiting from the review process

*Preparing oral presentations

*Dealing with the press and the public

*Publishing and the Internet

*Writing in English as a foreign language

"Montgomery wants scientists to cast off the straightjacket of convention when they write for other scientists, or at least to ask a friend to loosen the ties. He covers a huge amount of ground, from papers and review articles to book reviews, technical reports, presentations and online publishing. He has some excellent practical advice for nervous publishing virgins with writer's block as well as encouragement for more experienced writers flirting coyly with metaphor and the occasional rhetorical flourish." New Scientist

Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-220) and index.

Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as 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 a dozen such principles based on what readers need in order to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, and organized paragraphs. The author, a biologist and an experienced teacher of scientific writing, illustrates each principle with real-life examples of both good and bad writing and shows how to revise bad writing to make it clearer and more concise. She ends each chapter with practice exercises so that readers can come away with new writing skills after just one sitting.

 Writing Science in Plain English can help writers at all levels of their academic and professional careers—undergraduate students working on research reports, established scientists writing articles and grant proposals, or agency employees working to follow the Plain Writing Act. This essential resource is the perfect companion for all who seek to write science effectively.

Scott L. Montgomery is a consulting geologist, writer, and independent scholar. He has authored hundreds of papers, articles, monographs, and reports in the geological sciences, as well as several textbooks and translations. He is also the author of several books on the history of science and scientific language, including Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time.

Acknowledgments

1 Why Write Science in Plain English?

2  Before You Write

     Audience

     Register

     Tone

3  Tell a Story

     Make Characters Subjects and Their Actions Verbs

     Use Strong Verbs

     Place Subjects and Verbs Close Together

4  Favor the Active Voice

     Benefits of Active Voice

     Proper Uses of Passive Voice

5  Choose Your Words with Care

     Use Short Words Instead of Long Ones

     Keep Terms the Same

     Break Up Noun Strings

     Rethink Technical Terms

6  Omit Needless Words

     Redundancy

     Metadiscourse and Transition Words

     Affirmatives and Negatives

7  Old Information and New Information

     Put Old Information at Beginnings of Sentences

     Put New Information at Ends of Sentences

8  Make Lists Parallel

9  Vary the Length of Your Sentences

10  Design Your Paragraphs

     Issue

     Development

     Conclusion

     Point

11  Arrange Your Paragraphs

     Chronological Order

     General to Specific

     Least Important to Most Important

     Problem to Solution

     Compare and Contrast

     Transition Words Revisited

Appendix 1  Basic Writing ConceptsAppendix 2  Exercise Key

Index