Showing Chemists How To Write Good

"The Chemist's English," a slim volume of 170 pages, is a pleasure—in the same sense in which an elegantly written original research paper provides an esthetic pleasure. It is not a usage book. It does not replace books on English usage such as the Henry Fowler-Ernest Gowers "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" or Theodore M. Bernstein's "The Careful Writer." Nor will it serve as a substitute for the "Handbook for Authors of Papers in American Chemical Society Publications." Instead, it presents a completely new approach to problems of writing as they confront the chemist. "The Chemist's English" deals seriously with problems and ambiguities that arise frequently in writing research papers and reports. Its examples are drawn almost entirely from chemistry. For instance: " To thermostat is a vogue word at the moment. I think, though, that authors feel slightly guilty about its use, for they nervously keep doubling the final t to form ...