Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read―and to write.
Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read―and to write.
Dispelling the myth that you cannot get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose, Sword shows how much journal editors and readers welcome work that avoids excessive jargon and abstraction. Sword’s analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields documents a startling gap between how academics typically describe good writing and the turgid prose they regularly produce.
Stylish Academic Writing showcases a range of scholars from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences who write with vividness and panache. Individual chapters take up specific elements of style, such as titles and headings, chapter openings, and structure, and close with examples of transferable techniques that any writer can master.
作者简介
· · · · · ·
Helen Sword is Professor and Director of the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education at the University of Auckland.
Lengthy parenthetical citations violate, or at least risk violating, two key principles of stylish writing. First, they slow the text’s momentum: how can you possibly tell a compelling research story if you have to stop and cough every few seconds?Second, much in the same way that discursive footnotes and endnotes lend themselves to eruptions of excessive erudition, parenthetical styles encourage extravagant but often meaningless name- dropping. (查看原文)
Concrete language is arguably the single most valuable tool in the stylish writer's toolbox. When readers encounter a sentence composed largely of concrete nouns, they can immediately visualize its objects, actions, and relationships, ...
but takes care to balance them with appeals to sensory experience: sense, world, earth, sun, eyes. Her writing helps us see how ideas and theories can take on energy and agency, a life of their own.
Beer's attention to style is evident also in the structure and pace of her pose. She starts off the paragraph with a short, compact sentence(seven words)followed by two slightly longer ones(fifteen and twelve words) and another very short one(six words). Then, just as we are getting used to her almost staccato rhythm, she tosses in a long, sinuous sentence(f... (查看原文)
1 有用 0 K 2021-01-05 21:33:58
语料分析详尽，不过选材多是文科。所谓的理科期刊选文也是科普向的commentary而非学术文章，一些建议是建立在牺牲严谨性的前提下的。一些叙述违背作者自己提倡的原则，全书页数不多仍感冗长。略读，扫一眼每章最后的things to try就足够了。
1 有用 carried 2016-04-20 09:14:35
对于我这样的外国人来说，这本书真的很有用。LB2369. Academic writing. English language - Style.
0 有用 Thistle- 2021-12-01 23:18:26
粗粗看了看这个stylish writing不是我的style。可能是赶时间看得不是很认真，我实在没有抓住本书的重点，每章都有具体的方向但是一到内容上就开始铺开了写搞得人摸不清头脑。
1 有用 Renee 2017-01-10 02:01:18
New year resolution
0 有用 SemiJoker 2013-10-27 11:06:07
Elegant ideas deserve elegant expressions. Intellectual creativity thrives best in carefully crafted sentences.