Considering the composition classroom as a mad scientist’s laboratory, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition introduces different kinds of writing as experiments. Writing an essay is a task that can strike fear into a student’s heart, but performing an experiment licenses creativity and doesn’t presume that one knows the outcome from the start. The Mad Scientist’s Guide covers the kinds of writing most often required on college campuses, while also addressing important steps and activities frequently overlooked in composition guides, such as revision and peer reviewing. Actual examples of student writing are included throughout, as are helpful reminders and tips to help students polish their skills. Above all, the Mad Scientist’s Guide seeks to make writing fun.

Considering the composition classroom as a mad scientist’s laboratory, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition introduces different kinds of writing as experiments. Writing an essay is a task that can strike fear into a student’s heart, but performing an experiment licenses creativity and doesn’t presume that one knows the outcome from the start. The Mad Scientist’s Guide covers the kinds of writing most often required on college campuses, while also addressing important steps and activities frequently overlooked in composition guides, such as revision and peer reviewing. Actual examples of student writing are included throughout, as are helpful reminders and tips to help students polish their skills. Above all, the Mad Scientist’s Guide seeks to make writing fun.

Considering the composition classroom as a mad scientist’s laboratory, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition introduces different kinds of writing as experiments. Writing an essay is a task that can strike fear into a student’s heart, but performing an experiment licenses creativity and doesn’t presume that one knows the outcome from the start. The Mad Scientist’s Guide covers the kinds of writing most often required on college campuses, while also addressing important steps and activities frequently overlooked in composition guides, such as revision and peer reviewing. Actual examples of student writing are included throughout, as are helpful reminders and tips to help students polish their skills. Above all, the Mad Scientist’s Guide seeks to make writing fun.

How does one help undergraduate students learn quickly how to produce effectively organized, persuasive, well-reasoned essays? This book offers a straightforward, systematic introduction to some of the key elements of the construction of arguments in essay form. The focus here is on practical advice that will prove immediately useful to students—recommended procedures are emphasized, and detailed examples of academic and student writing are provided throughout. The book introduces the basics of argumentation before moving on to the structure and organization of essays. Planning and outlining the essay, writing strong thesis statements, organizing coherent paragraphs, and writing effective introductions and conclusions are among the subjects discussed. A separate section concisely explores issues specific to essays about literary works.

This is a book for real students, people with full and active lives. Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students covers the basics of the introductory college writing course in a concise, student-friendly format. Each chapter concentrates on a crucial element of composing an academic essay and is capable of being read in a single sitting. The book also includes numerous “timesaver tips,” along with warnings about frequent student errors—all designed to help students make the most of one of their most limited and precious resources: time.

This rhetorical, multi-disciplinary guide discusses the major genres of science writing including research reports, grant proposals, conference presentations, and a variety of forms of public communication. Writing in the Sciences combines a descriptive approach helping students to recognize distinctive features of common genres in their fields with a rhetorical focus helping them to analyze how, why, and for whom texts are created by scientists. Multiple samples from real research cases illustrate a range of scientific disciplines and audiences for scientific research along with the corresponding differences in focus, arrangement, style, and other rhetorical dimensions. Comparisons among disciplines provide the opportunity for students to identify common conventions in science and investigate variation across fields.

For the general public, magnetism often seems more the province of new age quacks, movie mad scientists, and grade-school teachers than an area of actual, ongoing scientific inquiry. But as Ronald T. Merrill reveals in Our Magnetic Earth, geomagnetism really is an enduring, vibrant area of science, one that offers answers to some of the biggest questions about our planet’s past—and maybe even its future. In a clear and careful fashion, he lays out the physics of geomagnetism and magnetic fields, then goes on to explain how Earth’s magnetic field provides crucial evidence for our understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics; how and why animals, ranging from bacteria to mammals, sense and use the magnetic field; how changes in climate over eons can be studied through variations in the magnetic field in rocks; and much more. Throughout, Merrill peppers his scientific account with bizarre anecdotes and fascinating details, from levitating pizzas to Moon missions to blackmailing KGB agents—a reminder that real science can at times be stranger, and more amusing, than fiction. A winning primer for anyone who has ever struggled with a compass or admired a ragged V of migrating geese, Our Magnetic Earth demonstrates that education and entertainment need not be polar opposites.

A collection of fascinating stories, entertainingly told, revealing the human face of science. Eurekas and Euphorias encompasses some 200 anecdotes brilliantly illustrating scientists in all their shapes: the obsessive and the dilettantish, the genial, the envious, the preternaturally brilliant and the slow-witted who sometimes see further in the end, the open-minded and the intolerant, recluses and arrivistes. Told with wit and relish by Walter Gratzer, here are stories to delight, astonish, instruct, and most especially, entertain the general reader, scientist and non-scientist alike.

Using rich examples and engaging pedagogical tools, this book equips students to master the challenges of academic writing in graduate school and beyond. The authors delve into nitty-gritty aspects of structure, style, and language, and offer a window onto the thought processes and strategies that strong writers rely on. Essential topics include how to: identify the audience for a particular piece of writing; craft a voice appropriate for a discipline-specific community of practice; compose the sections of a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research article; select the right peer-reviewed journal for submitting an article; and navigate the publication process. Readers are also guided to build vital self-coaching skills in order to stay motivated and complete projects successfully. User-Friendly Features *Exercises (with answers) analyzing a variety of texts. *Annotated excerpts from peer-reviewed journal articles. *Practice opportunities that help readers apply the ideas to their own writing projects. *Personal reflections and advice on common writing hurdles. *End-of-chapter Awareness and Action Reminders with clear steps to take.

This book encompasses the entire range of writing skills that today's experimental scientist may need to employ. Chapters cover routine forms, such as laboratory notes, abstracts, and memoranda; dissertations; journal articles; and grant proposals. Robert Goldbort discusses how best to approach various writing tasks as well as how to deal with the everyday complexities that may get in the way of ideal practice--difficult collaborators, experiments gone wrong, funding rejections. He underscores the importance of an ethical approach to science and scientific communication and insists on the necessity of full disclosure.