Communicating Science: The Scientific Article From the 17th Century to the Present

This book is worthy of being in every university’s stacks and on the desk of every communication and rhetoric instructor. The result of ten years of scholarly pursuit, Communicating Science seems to be the purest form of rhetorical truths and communication—like plutonium, a substance representing the yield of tons of technical articles, analyzed and filtered and categorized into easily understandable elements. Alan G. Gross and his colleagues treat us to a lively—yes, lively—tour of the maturation of the English, French, German, and American technical journals, an odyssey from about 1691 to as recent as 1990, with ample narrative and technical illustrations for every reader to appreciate.