Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second EditionStudents and researchers all write under pressure, and those pressures—most lamentably, the desire to impress your audience rather than to communicate with them—often lead to pretentious prose, academic posturing, and, not infrequently, writer’s block. Sociologist Howard S. Becker has written the classic book on how to conquer these pressures and simply write. First published nearly twenty years ago, Writing for Social Scientists has become a lifesaver for writers in all fields, from beginning students to published authors. Becker’s message is clear: in order to learn how to write, take a deep breath and then begin writing. Revise. Repeat. It is not always an easy process, as Becker wryly relates. Decades of teaching, researching, and writing have given him plenty of material, and Becker neatly exposes the foibles of academia and its “publish or perish” atmosphere. Wordiness, the passive voice, inserting a “the way in which” when a simple “how” will do—all these mechanisms are a part of the social structure of academic writing. By shrugging off such impediments—or at the very least, putting them aside for a few hours—we can reform our work habits and start writing lucidly without worrying about grades, peer approval, or the “literature.” In this new edition, Becker takes account of major changes in the computer tools available to writers today, and also substantially expands his analysis of how academic institutions create problems for them. As competition in academia grows increasingly heated, Writing for Social Scientists will provide solace to a new generation of frazzled, would-be writers. |
Contents
Freshman English for Graduate Students | 1 |
Persona and Authority | 26 |
One Right Way | 43 |
Editing by Ear | 68 |
Learning to Write as a Professional | 90 |
Risk by Pamela Richards | 108 |
Getting It out the Door | 121 |
Terrorized by the Literature | 135 |
1986 Preface | ix |
Freshman English for Graduate Students | 1 |
Persona and Authority | 26 |
One Right Way | 43 |
Editing by Ear | 68 |
Learning to Write as a Professional | 90 |
Risk by Pamela Richards | 108 |
Getting It out the Door | 121 |
Writing with Computers | 150 |
A Final Word | 173 |
References | 185 |
Index | 193 |
v | |
Preface to theSecond Edition | vii |
Terrorized by the Literature | 135 |
Writing with Computers | 150 |
A Final Word | 173 |
185 | |
193 | |
Other editions - View all
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or ... Howard S. Becker No preview available - 2007 |
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or ... Howard S. Becker No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
academic American Sociological Association argument authors Becker began begin better can’t cards chapter Chicago classics colleagues communards described discipline discover discussion early drafts editing editors Erving Goffman Everett Hughes example experience fear feel friends give Goffman graduate school graduate students habits Harold Garfinkel heuristics Hughes ical ideas intellectual interesting journals kind knew less Lillian Hellman literature look Louis Wirth material Max Weber mean metaphor Pamela Richards paper person photographs phrases problem produce profes professional programs prose published readers reason result rewriting rience risk Rosanna routinely rules scholarly scholars sentence social organization sociologists sociology someone Stinchcombe style suggested talk teach teachers tell theory things Thomas Kuhn thought tion topic trouble trust understand word processor words worry Wright Mills writing written wrote