A Handbook for Scholars

by Mary-Claire van Leunen

Book Overview

By its very nature, scholarly writing lacks the freedom and rhetorical panache of other types of prose. Custom, propriety, and a quest for certainty hem the scholar in on all sides. But while it is necessarily formal, allusive, and accurate, scholarly writing does not have to be--nor should it be--wooden, pedantic, and cryptic. A Handbook for Scholars helps scholars achieve the first set of characteristics without falling victim to the second.
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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195069544
• ISBN13: 9780195069549
• Release Date: February 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Every scholar or technical writer should read this

When I was getting ready to write my disseration, my advisor strongly urged me to get this book. I'm really glad he did. The book contains excellent advice on all aspects of scholarly writing. And there is not just advice on how to write, but on numerous ethical issues, like how much you can quote without marking it as a quotion, and can you cite references you haven't actually looked up yourself, and what do you have to put in a curriculum vitae. She tells you how to properly cite every imaginable source: Corporate publications with no author, goverment documents, the US Constituion, the Bible, ancient documents found in museums, etc. Styles have changed a bit since the 1st edition (the one I'm actually reporting on). In that edition she says you can't use use citations as nouns, as in "These results conflict with those reported in [Jones98]." However, this usage is very common. I don't know what the newer edition says on this issue.

Read it before you start your writing

This handbook has every rule you would like to know for your writing (article, book, thesis, even your curriculum vitae), as a scholar, I have to say. This book doesn't deal with "how you should write your ideas," but with your questions about style, capitalization, references in foreign languages, and so on. For Spanish speakers: La mayoría de las reglas de este libro pueden ser fácilmente "traducidas" a nuestro idioma (excepto, por supuesto, aquellas acerca de comillas).

Excellent aid in positioning your mind to write well.

If you're a scholar, and are looking for something after Strunk and White, this is it. It is entertaining reading while pumping your brain full of all those little hidden rules of style that noone ever taught you.