EXPOSITION FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNICAL STUDENTS
By Prof. John Lincoln Stewart. William, Sloane Associates, Inc., 1950, 251 pp. $2.00.
The only thing wrong with Professor Stewart's book is its title. It is too modest. There is no one who could not learn a great deal about writing from this book, and it has the further quality, almost unique I should think, of making pleasant reading. Professor Stewart is a very good writer himself and manages to make his reader feel, not that he is being lectured to, but that he is being taken into the confidence of a writer who has worked out all his conclusions from his own experience.
The best thing about the book is that it does not allow the scientific student to think that his problems of communication can be solved by any mere mastery of special techniques. Professor Stewart never allows his readers to forget that clear thinking makes good writing, whatever the special interest of the writer may be. He attacks the problem at its source, in the human mind, by discussing problems of communication fundamental to all men and giving the scientific writer some perspective. He then presents an admirable discussion of logic. There is not a student in America who would not benefit from this section of the book.
The chapter on the outline is good; that on the paragraph a masterpiece. Even in the rest of the book, which is more specifically devoted to the writing of technical and scientific reports, there is much that is universally applicable. As a teacher of freshman English I was delighted with Professor Stewart's remarks on observation and with his chapter on library research. His illustrations are always intelligent and well-chosen, and the questions he puts at the end of each chapter are calculated to make the student think for himself. In short, the book always manages to keep the special problems of the scientist related to the wider problems of all writers and students, so that, if it were titled simply Exposition, it could be used without hesitation for any type of college student.
