Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals / Edition 3

by Robert A. Day, Nancy Sakaduski

Overview

This entertaining and highly readable book gives anyone writing in the sciences a clear and easy-to-follow guide to the English language.

English is often regarded as one of the most difficult languages to master. Yet while the English language has a vocabulary of upwards of 500,000 words, it only uses nine parts of speech, and all of these words fall into one (or more) of those nine categories. Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals, Third Edition contains many simple revelations like this that make effective scientific writing in English easy, even for those whose fluency is in another language.

The book is organized around a basic guide to English grammar that is specifically tailored to the needs of scientists, science writers, science educators, and science students. The authors explain the goals of scientific writing, the role of style, and the various kinds of writing in the sciences, then provide a basic guide to the fundamentals of English and address problem areas such as redundancies, abbreviations and acronyms, jargon, and foreign terms. Email, online publishing, blogs, and writing for the Web are covered as well. This book is designed to be an enlightening and entertaining read that can then be retained as a practical scientific writing reference guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313391941
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/16/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robert A. Day is professor emeritus at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE.

Nancy Sakaduski is a writer and consultant based in Chadds Ford, PA.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Principles of Scientific Writing 1

2 Kinds of Writing 7

3 Writing Style 11

4 The English Language 21

5 Grammar 25

6 Words 35

7 Name Words (Nouns and Pronouns) 45

8 Action Words (Verbs) 57

9 Descriptive Words (Adjectives, Adverbs, and Articles) 61

10 Function Words (Conjunctions, Prepositions, and Interjections) 69

11 Prefixes and Suffixes 75

12 Redundancies and Jargon 81

13 Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Initialisms 89

14 Phrases 97

15 Clauses 103

16 Sentences 109

17 Paragraphs 121

18 Voice, Person, and Tense 125

19 Punctuation 131

20 Writing for Electronic Media 157

Glossary 169

Appendix 1 Principles of Punctuation Presented Plainly 175

Appendix 2 Problem Words and Expressions 185

Appendix 3 Words and Expressions to Avoid 205

Notes 217

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

Shows scientists and other technical writers how to clearly, simply, and accurately communicate complex scientific concepts. As a bonus, many of the examples are amusing. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Scientific English also does a very good job of showing how one can improve individual sentences. Its chief virtues are its wealth of examples (new in this edition) and the special care it gives to the trickiest parts of scientific writing. . . . Scientific English overall is an excellent guide for those people writing scientific English, from peer-reviewed jourbanals to blogs, online comments sections, grants, and social media.” —Technical Communication

“This book is an excellent one for reference. It should be a welcome addition to the medical writer's library.” —American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) Jourbanal

From the Publisher