Review: Communication Reference Books for Engineers and Scientists

Over the past years, many reference books have been published for various science and engineering disciplines. Based on publishers’ descriptions, I selected four for review.

Kaempf, Charlotte. ATTW Bulletin (2005). Articles>Reviews>Scientific Communication>Engineering

Review: The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid  

As the word craft in the title of the book suggests, the ability to give good presentations is not a genetically linked trait but a craft that can be learned.

Armbruster, David L. Technical Communication Online (2004). Articles>Reviews>Presentations>Scientific Communication

Review: Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image  

As an accomplished photographer of science and engineering research, Felice Frankel knows how to capture her readers' attention—her exquisite images in Envisioning science communicate their amazing power, by her design, and ultimately 'teach us to see' science in a different way. We are witnesses to the excitement of discovery represented in such images as cadmium selenide nanocrystals, self-assembled polyhedra, yeast colonies, and mouse embryo lungs, thereby illustrating the book's educational value.

Winn, Wendy. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>Graphic Design>Scientific Communication

Review: Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine    

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is a fine introduction to the burgeoning field of medical rhetoric and an excellent addition to the annals of rhetorical criticism in general. Written by Judy Z. Segal from the University of British Columbia, the work is solidly grounded in the mainstay rhetorical traditions of Burke, Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca, Booth, and Aristotle. But Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is hardly conservative in its mission or methodology, and the result is a work that captures the essence of discursive encounters in medicine, especially those between doctors and patients and their families, and yet unabashedly attempts to reform these encounters for the betterment of all parties involved.

Jablonski, Jeffrey and Michael J. Zerbe. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Reviews>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Review: Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies    

Given Alan G. Gross's substantial contributions to the rhetoric of science, most recently with Joseph E. Harmon and Michael Reidy (2002) in Communicating Science, I looked forward to reading Gross's latest work, Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies--until I read the preface. In the preface, Gross notes that Starring the Text is not a new con- tribution but a 'major refiguring' (p. ix) of his earlier work The Rhetoric of Science (1990). Like most readers, I am decidedly less enthusiastic about reading a revision of an older contribution than I am about reading a new contribution.

Paul, Danette. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2008). Articles>Reviews>Rhetoric>Scientific Communication