I put the book on hold at the library immediately after reading Cecelia’s recommendation. Still hasn’t come in yet — now I’m even MORE eager to read it! Thanks for your endorsement of it, Cindy!

I am currently enrolled in the Print Futures Professional Writing program at Douglas College, and the Second Edition of They Say / I Say is one of the required texts. Though this is quite early on in the course, I am all ready finding it to be one of my most favorite, both for the value of helpful information it provides, as well as the level of enjoyment it gives the reader. Excellent piece of work, and very well written!

Thanks for another practical suggestion, Cecelia! I really appreciate it.

You’re welcome, Daphne. If you (or your triplets) are looking for a good guide to integrating sources into a paper, Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing has some great examples. It’s a small book, but the section on how to use quotations is worth the $9.95.

Cecelia, this is a fantastic-looking book. Thanks so much for recommending it. I’m going to order it right away. For anyone else who is interested, here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/0393924092

You are quite right, Wench (that can’t really be your name, right?) I work with a group of scientists now and they are constantly tearing out their hair over how few of their colleagues can write properly. I also readily agree with your comment: “Being good at the science will get you a long way in science fields, but being able to write well about it will get you much farther.” So true. (And from the reverse perspective I frequently tell journalists with any expertise in math/science that they can go really far.) Essentially, EVERYONE should learn to write an essay! Thanks for making that point.

But I do have one quibble, and that’s with your dismissal of the relevance of this column for science students. As someone with a both a science degree and a social work degree, I can tell you that being able to write a good essay as a scientist is just as important as being able to do it as a social worker.

One of the reasons is that even science students often have to take core liberal arts courses, with the expected essays. The other is that there is a lot of writing that gets done in science! A lab report is a highly structured essay, and being able to write one coherently and clearly is a skill many science students lack. And if you’re taking two or three lab courses per semester, each with 6-8 lab reports due, each with their own research and experimentation… that’s a lot of essays. Being good at the science will get you a long way in science fields, but being able to write well about it will get you much farther.