Writing style—continued

Everyone has his or her own writing style, some better than others. It is imperative that you continually try to improve your writing skills. When your instructor reviews your write-up, he or she should include helpful writing tips in the grading. Read the works listed in the references at the end of this chapter for further instructions in scientific writing. 

Your main aim in developing a scientific style should be to get your message across directly and unambiguously. While you can try to achieve this through a set of rules (see Box 50.1), you may find other requirements driving your writing in a contradictory direction. For instance, the need to be accurate and complete may result in text littered with technical terms, and the flow may be continually interrupted by references to the literature. The need to be succinct... 

If you like the style of presentation of material in this book, I will continue writing about these areas, as well as related topics like parapsychology and altered states of consciousness, in the Review of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and in the Bulletin of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Membership in the Institute is currently open to readers at 35 per year. Various lectures and workshops of mine around the country arc announced in these publications. The Institute also carries back issues of a quarterly newsletter, The Open Mind, that I published for four years, as well as books and tapes of mine. The Institute can be reached at 475 Gate Five Road, Suite 300, Sausalito, CA 94965 (415) 331-5650. 

Detailed works on hardness are to be found in the metallurgical area, where much of the theory and early applications were developed. This book does not overly stress this early development of theory and practice, but concentrates wherever possible on the ceramics and glasses. Thus Chapter 1 introduces the general subject area to those whose interest may have been blunted in the past by the emphasis on one area of materials. Subjects raised in the first chapter are developed more fully in later chapters. Chapter 2 focuses on some practical aspects of the most commonly encountered techniques. Chapter 3 is a truly ceramic chapter, for it is in the area of single-crystal examination that the technique has made its greatest contribution to developing theory and uses. Much of the style of this chapter derives from work and ideas of Professor C. A. Brookes of Hull University, who set out with me to write this book but unfortunately was not able, due to pressures of time and work, to continue. I am indebted to him for the early discussions we had. 

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