Michael Jay Katz

This was suggested reading for me from a colleague. I found it useful, it is aimed at people beginning their science career. I found lot of useful hints, but I have to say I skipped a lot of the examples. I think they would've been useful had I not understood the point, but since they were mostly from the field of chemistry or medicine, I just found them hard to read. It would've been helpful, if the examples were from physics/astronomy. However, I got some good general article writing tips and I think reading this will improve my research reporting. So, I'm glad I read it (especially since I really need to start writing) but I don't think I need my own copy of the book.… (more)

There are a whole lot of guides to scientific writing; I like this because it's practically an algorithm, and one that assumes you're doing experimental research and builds the writing process into the research. Where Silvia says "Outline", Katz goes from the IMRAD heading structure to clusters of topics, to sentences, to re-organized sentences, and with unrelenting step-by-step concentration on putting all the necessary parts of a research result into the most clear and simple order, winds up with paragraphs and then a paper.

Part of the algorithm is suitable maintenance and use of one's own ability to concentrate; Katz assumes a lot of cognitive hiccups, limited capacity, etc., as givens, where Silvia thought of them as topics in their own right. The two books don't particularly disagree in their advice, although Katz pays a lot less attention to the subjective experience.… (more)