E-Book Overview
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.
E-Book Content
Writing for Social Scientists
On Writing, Editing, and Publishing Jacques Barzun
Doing Honest Work in College Charles Lipson
Telling About Society Howard S. Becker
How to Write a BA Thesis Charles Lipson
Tricks of the Trade Howard S. Becker
Cite Right Charles Lipson
Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property Susan M. Bielstein
The Chicago Guide to Writing about Multivariate Analysis Jane E. Miller
The Craft of Translation John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, editors The Craft of Research Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams Glossary of Typesetting Terms Richard Eckersley, Richard Angstadt, Charles M. Ellerston, Richard Hendel, Naomi B. Pascal, and Anita Walker Scott Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw Legal Writing in Plain English Bryan A. Garner From Dissertation to Book William Germano Getting It Published William Germano A Poet’s Guide to Poetry Mary Kinzie The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography Luke Eric Lassiter
The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers Jane E. Miller Mapping It Out Mark Monmonier The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science Scott L. Montgomery Indexing Books Nancy C. Mulvany Getting into Print Walter W. Powell A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations Kate L. Turabian Tales of the Field John Van Maanen Style Joseph M. Williams A Handbook of Biological Illustration Frances W. Zweifel
Writing for Social Scientists How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article Second Edition
Howard S. Becker with a chapter by Pamela Richards
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
Howard S. Becker is a sociologist and the author of Outsiders, Tricks of the Trade, and Telling About Society. The drawings reproduced at the chapter openings of this book are by Claire Bretécher and first appeared under the title “Création” in Les Frustrés 3, © Le Nouvel Observateur. Chapter 1 appeared, in slightly different form, in The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 24 (Autumn 1983), and is reprinted here with the permission of the Midwest Sociological Society. The Universi