The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

An updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed writing guide for scientists

The Scientist’s Guide to Writing explains the essential techniques that students, postdocs, and early-career scientists need to write more clearly, efficiently, and easily. Now fully updated and expanded, this incisive primer offers practical advice on such topics as generating and maintaining writing momentum, structuring a scientific paper, revising a first draft, handling citations, responding to peer reviews, managing coauthorships, and more. The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist’s Guide to Writing shows scientists how to become better writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact.

  • New chapters discuss effective reading, choosing the right journal for your research, and the advantages and disadvantages of posting preprints
  • Provides additional advice on reporting statistical results, dealing with conflicting peer reviews, managing coauthorships, writing with English as an additional language, and more
  • Emphasizes writing as a process, not just a product
  • Encourages habits that improve motivation and productivity
  • Offers detailed guidance on submission, review, revision, and publication
  • Includes a wealth of new exercises
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The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

An updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed writing guide for scientists

The Scientist’s Guide to Writing explains the essential techniques that students, postdocs, and early-career scientists need to write more clearly, efficiently, and easily. Now fully updated and expanded, this incisive primer offers practical advice on such topics as generating and maintaining writing momentum, structuring a scientific paper, revising a first draft, handling citations, responding to peer reviews, managing coauthorships, and more. The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist’s Guide to Writing shows scientists how to become better writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact.

  • New chapters discuss effective reading, choosing the right journal for your research, and the advantages and disadvantages of posting preprints
  • Provides additional advice on reporting statistical results, dealing with conflicting peer reviews, managing coauthorships, writing with English as an additional language, and more
  • Emphasizes writing as a process, not just a product
  • Encourages habits that improve motivation and productivity
  • Offers detailed guidance on submission, review, revision, and publication
  • Includes a wealth of new exercises
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The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

by Stephen B. Heard
The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career
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The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

The Scientist's Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career

by Stephen B. Heard

Overview

An updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed writing guide for scientists

The Scientist’s Guide to Writing explains the essential techniques that students, postdocs, and early-career scientists need to write more clearly, efficiently, and easily. Now fully updated and expanded, this incisive primer offers practical advice on such topics as generating and maintaining writing momentum, structuring a scientific paper, revising a first draft, handling citations, responding to peer reviews, managing coauthorships, and more. The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist’s Guide to Writing shows scientists how to become better writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact.

  • New chapters discuss effective reading, choosing the right journal for your research, and the advantages and disadvantages of posting preprints
  • Provides additional advice on reporting statistical results, dealing with conflicting peer reviews, managing coauthorships, writing with English as an additional language, and more
  • Emphasizes writing as a process, not just a product
  • Encourages habits that improve motivation and productivity
  • Offers detailed guidance on submission, review, revision, and publication
  • Includes a wealth of new exercises

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691219196
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 02/08/2022
Series: Skills for Scholars
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 368
File size: 7 MB

About the Author

Stephen B. Heard is professor of biology at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. He is the author of Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels. Twitter @StephenBHeard

Table of Contents

What's New in the Second Edition? vii

Preface ix

A Note on the Exercises xi

Part I What Writing Is 1

1 On Bacon, Hobbes, and Newton, and the Selfishness of Writing Well 3

2 Genius, Craft, and What This Book Is About 11

Part II Writing Behavior 15

3 Writing and Reading 17

4 Managing Your Writing Behavior 22

5 Getting Started 30

6 Momentum 42

Part III Content and Structure 57

7 Finding and Telling Your Story 59

8 The Canonical Structure of the Scientific Paper 76

9 Front Matter and Abstract 81

10 The Introduction Section 88

11 The Methods Section 94

12 The Results Section 104

13 The Discussion Section 127

14 Back Matter 134

15 Citations 140

16 Beyond the IMRaD Canon 147

Part IV Style 157

17 Paragraphs 159

18 Sentences 169

19 Words 184

20 Brevity 193

Part V Revision 203

21 Self-Revision 205

22 "Friendly" Review 216

23 Formal Review 224

24 Revision and the "Response to Reviews" 235

Part VI Some Loose Threads 245

25 Journals and Preprints 247

26 The Diversity of Writing Forms 258

27 Managing Coauthorships 275

28 Three Kinds of Reading: Reference, Survey, and Deep 287

29 Writing for Speakers of English as an Additional Language 295

Part VII Final Thoughts 309

30 On Whimsy, Jokes, and Beauty: Can Scientific Writing Be Enjoyed? 311

Acknowledgments 325

References 327

Permanent URLs 341

Index 345

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A tremendous resource for new science writers. Heard writes so that you want to keep reading, which of course is the skill he’s teaching in this book. The Scientist’s Guide to Writing is carefully considered, engaging, and full of useful ideas.”—Mikaela Huntzinger, coauthor of How to Do Ecology: A Concise Handbook

“A delight to read and highly informative.”—Stephen K. Donovan, Journal of Scholarly Publishing

“This book does a great job of providing readers with the tools needed to make writing easier and more effective by focusing on the process and developing the habit of writing. As a consequence, this is a great guide for graduate students, and will also be helpful to scientists who are looking for ways to improve their writing and to get more of it done.”—Dianna K. Padilla, Quarterly Review of Biology

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