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    Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition
    Unavailable
    Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition
    Unavailable
    Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition
    Ebook246 pages11 hours

    Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition

    By Howard S. Becker and Pamela Richards

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Students 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateJan 1, 2007
    ISBN9780226041377
    Unavailable
    Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition
    Author

    Howard S. Becker

    Howard S. Becker has made major contributions to the sociology of deviance, the sociology of art, and the sociology of music. His books include Tricks of the Trade and What About Mozart? What About Murder? He lives and works in San Francisco and Paris.  

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    Reviews for Writing for Social Scientists

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Great resource for reworking how one thinks about writing and for getting past barriers.
    • 3/5
      More inspirational than useful but still worth reading. Becker gives advice geared toward grad students and young professionals on the importance of editing for clarity, avoiding language that attempts to sound academic but is in reality merely ambiguous, and continually re-writing papers. He also is an encouraging voice that speaks to scholar's fears of having others read their writing.
    • 4/5
      good, Becker's main idea is that you just do it .. do the writing and then rewrite .. after all you could always change it later.. chapter 9 tells about howwriters managed to do their work wihout computer and man, now i feel blessed... the book in general is inspiring ..
    • 5/5
      There is more than meets the eye in this book. Becker operates on two levels to show what it is that draws us to writing and how that, in turn, itself can be an obstacle - and how it can be managed. This is a great book.
    • 4/5
      I love books about writing, which is one reason I have so many of them. After reading Becker’s Writing for Social Scientists I understand that reading them is also part of my ritual to avoid actually writing. For me Becker’s book is one of the most useful books on writing I have found in decades but a beginning writer might not share that opinion. Early on the book dismisses the idea that it is going to rehash the all rules we learned in English classes and from style guides. Becker focuses on getting people to sit down and write. He exposes our avoidance strategies and our fears then he shows us how to overcome them. Although the title claims that it is for ‘social scientists’ the techniques and ideas in the book apply to most writers, the first half covers writing problems that even fiction writers grapple with. The second half gets deeper into nonfiction writing than the undergraduate’s mantra ‘cite your source’. Becker explains how those sources can make your job easier and when you should not use them. The book is easy to read, it is obvious that Becker takes his own advice. I think this is an excellent book for anyone who wants to improve their writing and relieve the anxieties it can cause.