How Things Work: PHYS 0847 Summer 2014

Have you new and interesting, or even outstanding, scientific results that you want to be recognized by your scientific colleagues, or be understood by the public? Or do you want to address decision makers to change their minds? Then, Laszlo s Communicating Science may be the book to consult. It has two main parts, corresponding to the type of communication task at hand: addressing peers and the general public, plus a third briefer section on how to inform decision-makers. Each of the main parts is subdivided into two sections, Guidelines and Genres, with entries arranged in alphabetical order. The guidelines are devoted to entries such as acronyms, active or passive voice, body language, figures and captions, introduction, irony, and taking the floor. Within genres, all possible media of communicating science are treated, e.g. the after-dinner speech, conference presentation, keynote lecture, magazine article, research proposal, and teleconference. Laszlo, a professional scientist, had a career embracing both academia and industrial consulting. He has extensive experience in authoring and editing papers, books and popular science books and conveys his skills as a communicator in this concise guide. The book is geared to engineers and scientists, educators and journalists, science administrators and the medical profession, editors and publishers, whether native or non-native-speakers - in short to anyone having to convert scientific data into an easily intelligible and interesting narrative.

Scientists and engineers are often criticized for their inability to write clear, grammatically correct English as well as for their poor presentation of data. The advancement of their careers depends on their ability to successfully communicate ideas and findings to colleagues, management, and the public. Illustrating how technology can be readily conveyed without loss of content, the book guides the readers in Writing and verbally presenting data and ideas in a clear, understandable, and logical manner Producing goal- and fact-oriented, as opposed to emotion-oriented, writing Appealing to the designated audience while providing enough background information to provide context of the problem or subject Clear and Concise Communications for Scientists and Engineers guides readers through the steps involved in producing a concise and understandable document in various formats.

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.

As a scientist, you are a professional writer: your career is built on successful proposals and papers. Success isn't defined by getting papers into print, but by getting them into the reader's consciousness. Writing Science is built upon the idea that successful science writing tells a story. It uses that insight to discuss how to write more effectively. Integrating lessons from other genres of writing with those from the author's years of experience as author, reviewer, and editor, thebook shows scientists and students how to present their research in a way that is clear and that will maximize reader comprehension. The book takes an integrated approach, using the principles of story structure to discuss every aspect of successful science writing, from the overall structure of a paper or proposal to individual sections, paragraphs, sentences, and words. It begins by building core arguments, analyzing why some stories are engaging and memorable while others are quickly forgotten, and proceeds to the elements of story structure, showing how the structures scientists and researchers use in papers and proposals fit into classical models. The book targets the internal structure of a paper, explaining how to write clear and professional sections, paragraphs, and sentences in a way that is clear and compelling. The ideas within a paper should flow seamlessly, drawing readers along. The final section of the book deals with special challenges, such as how to discuss research limitations and how to write for the public. Writing Science is a much-needed guide to succeeding in modern science. Its insights and strategies will equip science students, scientists, and professionals across a wide range of scientific and technical fields with the tools needed to communicate effectively.

What we dont know can hurt us-and does so every day. Climate change, health care policy, weapons of mass destruction, an aging infrastructure, stem cell research, endangered species, space exploration-all affect our lives as citizens and human beings in practical and profound ways. But unless we understand the science behind these issues, we cannot make reasonable decisions-and worse, we are susceptible to propaganda cloaked in scientific rhetoric. To convey the facts, this book suggests, scientists must take a more active role in making their work accessible to the media, and thus to the public. In Am I Making Myself Clear? Cornelia Dean, a distinguished science editor and reporter, urges scientists to overcome their institutional reticence and let their voices be heard beyond the forum of scholarly publication. By offering useful hints for improving their interactions with policymakers, the public, and her fellow journalists, Dean aims to change the attitude of scientists who scorn the mass media as an arena where important work is too often misrepresented or hyped. Even more important, she seeks to convince them of the value and urgency of communicating to the public. Am I Making Myself Clear? shows scientists how to speak to the public, handle the media, and describe their work to a lay audience on paper, online, and over the airwaves. It is a book that will improve the tone and content of debate over critical issues and will serve the interests of science and society.

From climate change to stem cell research, this book shows how to communicate complex scientific issues to the masses. Each chapter explains key methods and issues, providing the reader with practical and theoretical understanding of science communication. This is an essential text for students learning how to communicate science in today&’s media.

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

Available also as a PDF through UPenn

Writing scientific papers and giving talks at meetings and conferences are essential parts of research scientists' work, and this short, straightforwardly written book will help workers in all scientific disciplines to present their results effectively. The first chapter is about writing a scientific paper and is a revision of a prize-winning essay. Later chapters discuss the preparation of typescripts, speaking at meetings and writing theses. There are also chapters addressed particularly to those scientists to whom English is a foreign language and to those in North America. The last chapter gives information about dictionaries, style books and other literature. The book draws on the author's wealth of experience in presenting his own work and in editing the work of others, and he draws his examples from a range of subjects.

This distinctive monograph examines the dynamic rhetorical processes by which scientists shape, negotiate, and position their work within an interdisciplinary community. Author Ann M. Blakeslee studies the everyday rhetorical practices of a group of condensed matter theoretical physicists, and presents here the first substantial qualitative study of the planning and implementation of discursive practices by a group of scientists. This volume also represents one of the first studies to use situated cognition and learning theory to study how knowledge of a domain's discursive practices is acquired by newcomers. Unlike previous studies of scientists' rhetorical practices, which have focused primarily on the finished or published texts, Blakeslee's involvement with the physicists as they engaged in the composing processes--from jotting down planning notes through publishing a scientific paper--suggests an alternative view of audience based on cooperative interaction between authors and their interlocutors. From this innovative perspective, functional knowledge of audiences comes only by entering into some community of practice, in which readers also become self-defining interlocutors and even participants in joint projects. Blakeslee's research follows the physicists' work into communal, interactive dynamics, looking at their overt attempts to get feedback from members of their audiences, what that feedback was, and how they responded to it. This work addresses and extends a model for audience analysis that consists of two primary operations: getting to know and understand one's interlocutors, and determining how to reach and influence them. In doing so, it offers important insights into the dissemination of scientific information, and thus will be of great interest to scholars and students in the areas of rhetoric of science and technology, composition, rhetorical theory, and scientific writing.

Written and extensively class tested with NSF/NIH support, this timely and useful text addresses a crucial need which is acknowledged in most universities and colleges. It is the need for students to learn to write in the context of their field of study, in this case science. Although numerous "how to" writing books have been published, few, if any, address the central pedagogical issues underlying the process of learning to think and write scientifically. The direct connection between this writing skill and that of critical thinking is developed with engaging style by the author, an English professor. Moriarty's book is an invaluable guide for both undergraduate and graduate students.

This book assists science teachers and teacher educators in accommodating students' cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom. It contributes to the growing body of work on the role of language in developing classroom scientific communities of practice, expands that work by highlighting the challenges faced specifically by diverse learners and their teachers in joining those communities, and showcases exemplary teaching and research initiatives for helping to meet these challenges. End-of-chapter reflection and extension sections offer rich opportunities for the reader to reflect on the implications of each chapter's findings for science instruction and research and to apply insights developed in real-world science teaching and learning contexts. Informative and engaging, The Work of Language in Multicultural Classrooms is intended for courses specifically related to science education, particularly those emphasizing academic literacy and/or educating linguistically and culturally diverse students.

A volume in the SUNY series, Studies in Scientific and Technical Communication James P. Zappen, editor