scientific writing

[Tissa Salter]

Dr. Muirhead,

In a course I took this past semester with Dr. Jimmie Killingsworth, I was
given a book to review that you might add to the list of those already sent
to you:

Battalio, John T.  _The Rhetoric of Science in the Evolution of American
Ornithological Discourse__.  Stamford: Ablex, 1998.

As odd as the title may sound, it is a fascinating study of rhetoric as one
particular field of science gradually left the hands of expert amateurs
passing to the controlling realm of "scientists."  Battalio does extensive
statistical analysis of modals and passives in this published dissertation
and it should yield some interesting insights in methodology.

You might also find this book helpful:

Killingsworth, Jimmie, Jacqueline S. Palmer.  __Ecospeak:  Rhetoric and
Environmental Politics in America__. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992.

Killingworth and Palmer discuss, at length, the prevalence of " passive
constructions and the obliteration of human subjects in sentences..." in
scientific and technical writing.

Tissa Salter
Texas A & M University
Department of English
College Station, TX  77840
tissa at tca.net