Jane Shevtsov wrote:
Yes, it would be interesting to see some scans of the book, although
somebody who has actually taken a college-level health class would be
better positioned than I am to compare the book to modern ones.
...
And here are Orwell's prescriptions:
"(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you
are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if
you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."
...
Allowing that Orwell was addressing writing for "public consumption" and
not for the "scientific community" I would suggest reading at least the
first three (?) chapters of Angelika Hofmann, 2009, "Scientific Writing
and Communication: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations", Oxford
University Press.
Maybe less to Malcolm's original point and more to the needs of our
"scientific community", I would recommend Hofmann's book to every one of
our readers of this ListServ.
--
Ken Leonard, Ph.D. Candidate
The University of Georgia
Odum School of Ecology (Bradford Lab)
517 Biological Sciences Bldg.
Athens, GA 30602 US
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
kleon...@uga.edu, ken_leon...@earthlink.net
http://kleonard.myweb.uga.edu/
1+404.307.6425
