Customer Reviews

Short Guide to Writing about Biology, A (7th Edition)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a university professor teaching budding biologists, I've found this book to be excellent. As the other reviewer said, I wished I had this book when I was a student. I, too, had to learn things the long and hard way. Pechinik has done a great service to science students. Let's hope we see more good writing out of this next generation of young scientists.

I never buy anything unnecessary for my classes, it just creates unneeded clutter and stress for me. This book, however, takes the stress out of writing lab reports. It's on the pricey side, but it pays for itself. Even when I get stuck on writing a part of a report, I go back to this book and I find what I was doing wrong and/or how to go on. You can go through the different sections in the book to find something or you can refer to its very handy index at the back.

Jan Pechenik even gives examples for every part of your report (e.g., she lets you see what an introduction looks like, what a bibliography looks like, etc.). This book is for the neophytes, giving them the basics and also for the professional scientist, telling them how to format their papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Ever since I've had this (I have the 5th edition, but I lost it, so I'm going to order this 6th edition...can't live without it!), it's really hard to get a bad grade on a lab report. I used to have problems with writing captions for my tables and figures, but now they actually are articulate without having my rambling tone embedded in there.

Every time I have to do a lab report, I use this book. No exceptions. Although I cannot comment on the other aspects of the book in (check out the "Look Inside!" Table of Contents), its guidance for writing lab reports is helpful to the utmost. Before this book, I made in the high 80s on my lab reports; now it is rare that I go below a 95. The book is full of what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. For example, never give purpose to evolution (I am paraphrasing, of course). Birds did not evolve flight to escape predators or to travel long distance; they evolved flight because a series of random DNA mutations turned forelimbs into wings, and that increased their survival rate. That is just one of numerous examples, and, best of all, all of the examples given are extremely relevant to college students because the material comes from college-level lab reports. Still, all of my biology professors have this book, in one edition or anther, on their shelves. This review refers to the 5th edition.

I've used this book since I was a freshman biology major. I'm now a Ph.D. student and I still reference this book. I've read other writing manuals designed for students in the sciences, but I've found that nothing is as clear and useful to students in the life sciences as this book.

Every biology undergraduate should read this book. I wish I'd known about it when I was an undergraduate; it contains most of the information I had to learn the hard way.

This is a great book for anyone in the sciences. It helps with everything from writing letters of recommendation to lab reports. There are also sections about statistics that are very useful. I had to buy it for a class and the professor even highly recommended that we keep it through our careers because it would be very useful in many situations.

Pechnik has numerous examples (showing both acceptable and unacceptable practices) for every topic discussed, and tells you step-by-step how to do just about everything. Very useful, even beyond the classroom.

Book was a little bit late, like two days late, but when I received it, I received exactly what I expected to get. Thanks!

We had the book in two days of ordering. Was just as advertised. My student was very pleased with the book.

When I received this book I was kind of dissapointed with the size, I had never bought a book of the short guide series and I didn't realized how short they were. I was ready to return it when I started reading it, and I was really surprised. IT'S TOTALLY WORTH its price. I don't know how I managed to graduate without this book, it has great tips, very helpful biology examples (this is very important because you can relate what you're reading with what your professors are expecting in you biology courses), the technology tips have saved me a lot of time, now I'm more confident writing my theses.