Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Humane, wry, reflective, gentle, wise....A primer in the sense that it teaches the elements of good writing [and] a shrewd and subtle essay on the social organization of scholarship." - Kai Erikson, Contemporary Sociology "This little book is must reading for any would-be writer, social scientist or not, who has sat in front of a blank piece of paper...and wondered whether the plants have been watered lately." - Jane Delano Brown, Journalism Quarterly" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

Acutely sensitive to the anxieties that plague social science writers, Becker does a brilliant job of speaking to the moral and emotional problems at the root of bad writing. He shows students (and post-graduates) what they are doing wrong in their attempts to write and offers eminently useful suggestions about what they should be doing instead.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; illustrated edition edition (March 15, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226041085
• ISBN-13: 978-0226041087
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #400,291 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Becker gets you going, January 22, 2002

By	L. Ralston (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Starting Chapter 1 of my dissertation proposal scared the living daylights out of me. Where to start? How much do I need to research and read before I actually start writing? And then there is the never-ending "Here's just one more article/book/website I need to read/investigate before I can even start *thinking* about writing" refrain...

Becker, in a very straight-forward and humorous manner, gets you going. He lets you know the absolute fear you are feeling is perfectly normal and that the first draft is just that - a first draft. It doesn't have to be perfect; in fact it *shouldn't* be perfect. After reading this book, I simply sat down and started writing. I didn't worry about punctuation or sentence structure, I just wrote. Some of it ended up in the trash, but much of what I wrote on the first go-around was molded into some very good work.

Thanks to Howard Becker I think I might actual graduate!

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Becker is a master, December 8, 1998

By A Customer

I discovered this book in a methodology class for social scientists when our teacher demanded that we read it. The great thing about Becker is that what he writes is real life in its most intriguing details. This book won't teach you how to write but will teach you how to WORK. I recommend you read it, sociologist, anthropologist, political scientist, psycologist or whatever you are in the social sciences.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book is helpful, August 21, 2003

By	Katarina Visnar (Ljubljana, Slovenia) - See all my reviews

Having read a bunch of books on the topic of doing your thesis, I was a bit desperate since none of them seemed to offer really practical advices on how to tackle the problem of starting to write. I got lost in "how to read and write a literature review" and "how to talk to your committee members", and only when I start reading Becker's book I found this seemingly crazy but increadibly fine advice: sit down and write - just about everything that comes into your mind. If you get stuck, put it down. Your first draft will be much of a weird writing, but only through materializing it you will be able to make further steps forward. I've read this book in less than two days and have brightened my view of this huge task in front of me. The only redundant thing is the chapter on using the computer, since it became a usual stuff since this book was published. Everything else is a true confidence booster!