The Scientist’s Guide to Writing How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career (my reading notes)

I had corresponded with Dr. Stephen B. Heard about his writing book “The Scientist’s Guide to Writing How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career” a few years ago and he was kind enough to email me a PDF copy. I hadn’t made the time to read it until recently when I began compiling reading notes of books on how to do academic writing, and more specifically, what doctoral students can expect during the gruelling process of developing their doctoral dissertation. As a former chemical engineer and leather scientist, Stephen’s book resonated with me, as his book is oriented towards STEM disciplines.

My Twitter thread on Stephen’s book is self-explanatory and offers a summary of my overall thoughts on the book.

As you may know, I've read more than 15 books on how to write a PhD (and several more on how to write, more generally), because for my own book I want to scrutinise the lay of the land. https://t.co/jPcfvf8Plz I also found @WendyLBelcher 's journal article in 12 weeks fantastic.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) October 18, 2018

As @StephenBHeard says: "be crystal-clear on the focus of why you are writing". This is important as I always tell my students: my job as a scholar is to seek to explain phenomena. My view of scholarly research is quite positive, less normative: I aim to study how the world works

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) October 18, 2018

In his book, Heard shows how we can use concept maps (mind mapping) and outlining to improve our writing. He’s also (like me) a fan of early writing (start writing some text even before your research project is completed). Overall, great read and a good reference book/workbook. pic.twitter.com/qpKzQiGoAi

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) October 18, 2018

Overall, a great book for STEM folks.

If you liked this blog post, perhaps you’d want to check my reading notes of other books on various topics, including scholarly writing, or my page on reading notes of books geared towards doctoral candidates undertaking their dissertation research. Disclaimer: I purchase all my books with my own hard earned money, and I receive absolutely no cash from promoting, reading or reviewing these books. My intention is simply to help others in academia, particularly graduate students and scholars at the margins.

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