Multidisciplinary Communication in Public Health Genetics
"Words matter: write to learn what you know."
~ mary anne r. hershey
In a multidisciplinary field such as Public Health Genetics, effective communication is essential. The intended audience for most public health genetics research and analysis comes from many backgrounds, "languages," and scientific cultures.
"I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn?t have time."
~ Mark Twain
Students should be able to:
- recognize good and bad writing in published pieces in the area of public health genetics;
- understand and apply the principles of good written communication in their own public health genetics work;
- critique/edit their own work and the work of others;
- understand and apply the principles of good oral communication.
TEXT RESOURCES
"Never confuse your reason for writing with the reader's purpose for
reading."
~ Kathy Kohm
Douglas Flemons. Writing Between the Lines: Composition in the Social Sciences. New York:W.W.Norton. 1998.
Carol Rosenblum Perry, The Fine Art of Technical Writing. Hillsboro, Oregon:Blue Heron Publishing. 1991.
Patricia O'Connor, Woe is I. New York: Grosset/Putnam. 1996.
Strunk, William, and E.B. White. 1979. The Elements of Style. 3rd edition. New York:Macmillan.
Chicago Manual of Style. 14th edition. 1993. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
Trimble, John R. 1975. Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing. New York:Prentice Hall.
Williams, Joseph. 1988. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Scott, Glenview, Il:Foresman.
Alley, Michael. 1995. The Craft of Scientific Writing. 3rd edition. New York:Springer.
Blicq, Ron. 1993. Technically Write! Communicating in a Technological Era. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall.
Brusaw, Charles T., Gerald Alred, and Walter Oliu. 1993. Handbook of Technical Writing. 4th edition. New York: St. Martin?s Press.
Day, Robert. 1994. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper. Phoenix:Oryx Press.
Graham, Judith and Daniel Graham. 1994. The Writing System Workbook: a Step-by-Step Guide for Business and Technical Writers. Fairfax, Va: Preview Press.
Mathews, Janice, John Bowen, and Robert Matthews. 1996. Successful Scientific Writing. New York:Cambridge University Press.
ON LINE RESOURCES
"Never overestimate the reader?s time, patience, or knowledge."
~ Kathy Kohm
http://depts.washington.edu/engl/Undergrad/iwp.html
UW English Department, The Interdisciplinary Writing Program
http://depts.washington.edu/wcenter/base.html
UW English Department Writing Center (links to more on line reasources)
http://web.mit.edu/writing/
MIT Online Writing and Communication Center
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/issuetoc?ID=73502761
J. Musso, R. Biller, and R. Myrtle. 2000."Tradecraft: Professional Writing as
Problem Solving." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 19(4):635-646.
Available online (from UW computers or via
UW
Proxy Server)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1570
Smith, Richard. "How not to give a presentation." British Medical Journal.
London WC1H 9RJ. Available online (from UW computers or via
UW
Proxy Server)
HANDOUTS
Click to download
- On Writing in the Active Voice (.doc) (.pdf)
- Effective Writing (.doc) (.pdf)
- Alternative Openings (.doc) (.pdf)
- Writer's Diagnostic Test - Correcting, Punctuating, Editing (.doc) (.pdf)
- Writer's Diagnostic Test - Eliminating Redundancies ( .doc) (.pdf)
- Writer's Diagnostic Test - Choosing the Correct Word (.doc) (.pdf)
- Ode to Spam (.doc) (.pdf)
- Our Complicated Native Tounge (.doc) (.pdf)
- Rules to Write By (.doc) (.pdf)
- Science Without Snoozing (.doc) (.pdf)
- The Importance of Punctuation (.doc) (.pdf)
- Transitions for Clarity (.doc) (.pdf)
- How to Write Good (.doc) (.pdf)
- Additional Text Resources (.doc) (.pdf)
QUOTES
"If you asked me what I came here to do, I came to live out loud."
~ Emile Zola
"Writing is a difficult art because it involves thinking logically and
interestingly, two operations that are unnatural to most of our minds."
~ John Trimble
"A written exercise is designed to be read; it is not supposed to be a
challenge to clairvoyance."
~ Jacques Barzun
"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say."
~ Robert Brown, John Rogers, and Anthony Pressland
"If the reader is to grasp what the writer means, the writer must understand
how the reader reads."
~ George Gopen and Judith Swan
"Good writers are sticklers for continuity. They never allow themselves to
write a sentence that is not manifestly connected to the ones immediately
preceding and following it."
~ John Trimble
"I do not mind if you think slowly. I do object, however, if you publish
more quickly than you think."
~ Wolfgang Pauli
"Long words name little things. All big things have little names, such as
life and death; peace and war; or dawn, day, night, love, home. Learn to use
little words in a big way ? it is hard to do. But they say what you mean.
When you don?t know what you mean, use big words: They often fool little
people."
~ SSC Booknews, July 1981
"Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what one is saying."
~ John Updike
"Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything
that can be said can be said clearly."
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Simplify, simplify."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"Beginning with the exciting material and ending with a lack of luster often
leaves us disappointed and destroys our sense of momentum."
~ George Gopen and Judith Swan
"Figurative language is when you mean rooster and you say chandelier."
~ Taken from college students? answers to test questions
"Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from
Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope."
~ Taken from college students? answers to test questions