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Angelika H. Hofmann

Scientific Writing and Communication Papers, Proposals, andPresentations

Book Review—Reviewed by

TIMOTHY L. J. FERRIS

Index Terms—Research writing, writing research papers, writing research proposals, writing research reports.

This book is written as a text for a scientificresearch writing course but could also be used asa reference book to support a research methodscourse or be a useful companion for a student inthe thesis stage of his or her program. In addition,this book would remain as a useful referencefor researchers through their careers. The mostappropriate place to locate this book as a text forstudents pursuing a program involving a researchproject would depend on the division of subjectareas into courses in the particular program.

The author says that the book is intended for useby students at the upper levels of undergraduateprograms and above. This statement is consistentwith the content of the book. However, the titleof the book Scientific Writing and Communicationsuggests that the book provides a broad discussionof writing about scientific research. However,the book evidences close association withmedical and health sciences and the models andconceptualizations of research applied in thosefields. As such, the book has potential limitationsfor use as a general-purpose scientific or researchwriting textbook. Superficially, the prevalenceof examples and discussion of issues evidencinglinkage to medical and health sciences could limitthe attractiveness of this book to students in otherscientific or technological fields.

The pedagogical intent of the book is clear with thetext including explanatory and descriptive contentof the topics interwoven with a large number

Manuscript received January 02, 2012; accepted January 09,2012. Date of publication July 23, 2012; date of current versionAugust 16, 2012.The reviewer is with the Defence and Systems Institute,University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes 5095, Australia(email: timothy.ferris@unisa.edu.au).

IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2012.2205730

Book Publisher: New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 682pp. with index.

of examples, of both desirable and undesirablepractice, which are discussed in sufficient detailthat their exemplary character is clear to the reader.At the end of each chapter, the author presents achecklist of all the issues which have been raisedin the chapter as a tool to assist readers to checktheir work. The author includes extensive studentwork problems, and answers are given at the backof the book. These features are clear evidence of thepedagogical intent and would make the book easyto use as a textbook in research-related writingcourses.

There are a number of points at which the authorspecially tags paragraphs or sections as havingspecial relevance to people who have learnedEnglish as a foreign language, English as a SecondLanguage (ESL) readers, specifically dealing withcommon issues in how such people use English inresearch-related settings. In particular, Chapter 5deals with “special ESL grammar problems.” Someof these problems are obvious. One such problemis the appropriate use of prepositions. Hofmannrefers to a number of common preposition errorsmade by ESL authors but could push the pointhome more clearly by stating that prepositions arecritically important in conveying an author’s intent.As such, incorrect preposition usage may resultin a significant change in the meaning of the text,thereby obscuring the author’s meaning or perhapssignificantly misleading the reader. A secondproblem frequently observed in ESL authors isincorrect inflection of words commonly associatedwith pronunciation habits which do not result inclear enunciation of word endings. In the reviewer’sexperience, this often arises with people who lackconfidence that they know the correct form or,more often, with people whose first language is notinflective and does not convey meaning through theprecise sound of the end of words.

In Chapter 5, Hofmann also discusses issuesassociated with ESL authors’ inappropriate

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290 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 55, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012

construction of sentences and paragraphs. Thisreviewer objects to this issue being associated withESL speakers on the grounds of having observedthese problems with students from all backgroundsand not observing these problems with ESLstudents. The problems of sentence and paragraphconstruction would, in this reviewer’s opinion, bebetter dealt with as general issues affecting allauthors. This reviewer’s observation is that theseissues are associated with an author’s maturityof competence in the area about which they arewriting and the author’s confidence in the positionwhich they take about the subject matter. Hofmannwould appear to hold to the latter perspectivebecause of her observation in the preface thatclarity of thought is essential to good writing [1].

Indeed, the fact that my remarks in the previousparagraph are probably just a quibble is suggestedby Hofmann’s flow of argument in Chapter 7 whichdeals with the prewriting phase. In Chapter 7,Hofmann encourages authors to consider carefullythe impact of the intended audience and venue ofpublication of the writing in the design of theirreports of research. The consideration of audienceleads to authors making a clear plan for the outlineof presentation of their work which should conformas closely as possible to the conventions of thepublication venue to which they intend to submittheir work. Hofmann points out that this has apragmatic purpose of improving the probabilityof acceptance and a communicative purpose ofpresenting the authors’ work in the form to whichthe reader has become accustomed to findingresearch work presented. It is important to writein the conventional manner so that readers canexpend their effort on understanding the scienceconveyed by a paper rather than on unravelling theexpression of the ideas.

The book is organized into six parts, with the firstpart concerning scientific writing principles. Thesecond part explains the nature of a research paperand the contribution of some important aspects ofscientific communication including referencing andplagiarism, and figures and tables. In relation toreferencing, Hofmann advises authors to be carefulin how they express views that conflict with earlierauthors. The advice is framed in terms of one neverknowing where people may re-emerge to affect one’sown career, such as reviewers of papers submittedfor publication or research proposals prepared inthe pursuit of funding.

The third part explains the purpose and contentof the various sections of research papers and

review articles, particularly in the medical andhealth sciences, with advice about how to writeeach. In order, the paper sections addressed arethe introduction, materials and methods, results,discussion, abstract, and title. The advice providedin each chapter is clear and pertinent to theparticular purpose of each section.

In Chapter 18, Hofmann discusses review articles.She clearly indicates that review articles are adifferent kind of article than a research paperreporting an empirical investigation. One point Ifound in this chapter which I think is very importantin the teaching of writing literature reviews, agenre closely related to the review article, is that acommon problem is the simplistic listing of factsand dates derived from the publications reviewed.What is needed is analysis and commentary whichtransforms the simplistic list to a significantcontribution to the area of study. In my opinion, itwould have been valuable had this discussion beenconsiderably enhanced and emphasized.

In the fourth part, Hofmann discusses grantproposals. The discussion addresses a numberof different funding proposal scenarios includingresponses to calls for proposal operated bygovernment organizations and less formal lettersof proposal that may be written for privatefoundations. The particular forms of funding sourceand commentary about them are specific to theUS situation. It will be necessary for users of thisbook in other countries to glean what they needfrom the pieces of the discussion about the variouskinds of source.

Part five addresses posters and presentations, asthe other major methods of communicating science.Part six contains a single chapter explaining jobapplication-related writing skills.

The discipline orientation toward medicine andhealth sciences was a disappointment to thisreviewer, who is an engineer. The issues associatedwith the discipline orientation are deeper than justthe content of examples and the motivational effectthat may have on students in other fields. At a detaillevel, Hofmann refers several times to the use of theword “significant” as being necessarily associatedwith the concept of statistical significance, withthe advice that if an author’s intent is to conveythe notion of “importance,” another word must beused to avoid confusion. Superficially this wouldappear to be an argument about vocabulary. Butthis matter is actually much deeper than justvocabulary. The medical and health sciences take

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an inferential statistical approach to empiricalresearch which establishes an epistemologicalframe which demands statistical justification forany assertion about observations and, in turn, thestatistical justification is based on demonstrationthat to a defined confidence level, the observationsindicate any effect other than random associationsof the variables investigated.

Following this observation about the perspective ofthis book, it becomes clear that the perspective onresearch which is embedded in this book followsthe approach of empirical sciences, where the goalis to infer a framework of understanding fromobservations which, in turn, may have experimentalor nonexperimental origin. These approachesto research are consistent with approaches toresearch in areas such as the physical andbiological sciences and in engineering insofar asthe research concerns scientific investigation ofphenomena which may be useful in application,but they do not apply naturally to the kind ofresearch which is done in mathematics or thesolution development activities of engineering.

In conclusion, as we consider the particular usesof this book, we are confronted with a difficultissue: should communication of research be taught

in a separate course focused on communication,or should it be taught embedded in coursesfocused on research methods? If communicationof research is taught separated from researchmethods, there is a risk that students may perceivethe communication studies as an abstracted extrarather than as an embedded necessity with theresult that they may approach the course with aview to do the necessary in order to pass. Fromthe teacher’s side, a separated communicationcourse becomes disconnected from the challengeswhich the students feel as they are approaching aresearch project and may lose some of the focusthat would enable the communication teacher todrive home the points in the most apposite manner.The contrasting approach, which this reviewerhas used, has been to embed the communicationteaching within the research methods coursethrough cooperation with specialists in academicand professional communication [2]. The result ofthat has been much more focused teaching, leadingto a much deeper perception of the value of thecommunication studies as part of the students’development toward readiness to perform research.This book is written in a manner which lends itselfto use in either kind of course, but this reviewerwould see this book as holding great potential foruse in a research methods course which embedsthe necessary communication studies.

REFERENCES

[1] A. H. Hofmann, Scientific Writing and Communication Papers, Proposals, and Presentations. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2010, pp. xv–xvi.

[2] T. L. J. Ferris, E. Sitnikova, and A. H. Duff, “Building graduate capabilities to communicate research and planssuccessfully,” Int. J. Eng. Educ., vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 891–899, 2010.