You are here

Sci-tech: Grammar and style

Last Updated: 3-Mar-2015

This guide includes books on grammar and style, bibliographic management tools, style guides, dictionaries, study and teaching of technical writing, and a list of writing centers.

Subject Librarians

Grace Baysinger
Grace Baysinger
Head Librarian and Bibliographer of the Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Library (Swain)
(650) 725-1039
Live chat with librarians requires JavaScript.

Subjects

Chemistry
Chemical engineering

Related guides

Sci-tech: Communication
Sci-tech: Public outreach
Sci-tech: Ethics, IP, and data
Sci-tech: Scholarly publishing
Sci-tech: Written communication
Sci-tech: Visual communication
Sci-tech: Oral presentations
Sci-tech: Multimedia presentations

Around Stanford

Eng. Tech. Communication Program
Future Faculty Seminar
Graduate Prof. Dev.: Communication
Hume Writing Center
Notation in Science Writing Program
Oral Communication Program (CTL)
Poster Printing Service at Lathrop Lib.
Program in Writing and Rhetoric

Home

The craft of scientific communication
The craft of scientific communication / Joseph E. Harmon & Alan G. Gross.
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Stacks » Q223 .H37 2010
"The ability to communicate in print and person is essential to the life of a successful scientist. But since writing is often secondary in scientific education and teaching, there remains a significant need for guides that teach scientists how best to convey their research to general and professional audiences. This book will teach science students and scientists alike how to improve the clarity, cogency, and communicative power of their words and images.  The authors have combined their many years of experience in the art of science writing to analyze published examples of how the best scientists communicate. Organized topically with information on the structural elements and the style of scientific communications, each chapter draws on models of past successes and failures to show students and practitioners how best to negotiate the world of print, online publication, and oral presentation." (publisher's description)
The craft of scientific writing
The craft of scientific writing / Michael Alley.
3rd ed. New York : Springer, c1996.
Engineering Library (Terman) » Stacks » T11 .A37 1996
"The Craft of Scientific Writing is designed to help scientists and engineers--both professionals already active in the disciplines as well as students preparing to enter the professions--write about their work clearly and effectively. The author, who is both a writer and an applied physicist, approaches the subject in a fresh way. Using scores of examples from a wide variety of authors and disciplines, the book demonstrates the difference between strong scientific writing and weak scientific writing. The book includes many useful suggestions about approaching a wide variety of writing tasks--from laboratory reports to grant proposals, from internal communications to press releases--as well as a concise guide to style and usage appropriate for scientific writing." (publisher's description)
Craft of Editing
The craft of editing : a guide for managers, scientists, and engineers / Michael Alley.
New York : Springer, c2000.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Stacks » T11.4 .A43 2000
"The Craft of Editing is about the craft of editing scientific writing. It is designed to help you - and all those who deal with scientific and technical writing by others in universities, government labs, businesses, or engineering firms - become more effective and more efficient at editing the proposals, theses, journal articles, and reports that cross your desk and which you must approve, grade, or review. Unlike other texts that try to present the gamut of all possible editing experiences, this guide focuses on the kind of editing that you as a manager or teacher perform with your pencil (or computer) and someone else's work." (publisher's description)

Grammar & style

Chemist's English
The chemist's English / Robert Schoenfeld.
3rd, rev. ed., with "Say it in English, please!" Weinheim, Federal Republic of Germany ; New York, NY, USA : VCH, 1989.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Stacks » QD9.15 .S3 1989
Craft of Scientific Communication
The craft of scientific communication / Joseph E. Harmon & Alan G. Gross.
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Stacks » Q223 .H37 2010
Craft of Scientific Writing
The craft of scientific writing / Michael Alley.
3rd ed. New York : Springer, c1996.
Engineering Library (Terman) » Stacks » T11 .A37 1996
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Eats, shoots & leaves : the zero tolerance approach to punctuation / Lynne Truss.
New York : Gotham Books, c2004.
Green Library » Stacks » PE1450 .T75 2004
Elements of Resume Style
The elements of resume style : essential rules for writing resumes and cover letters that work / Scott Bennett.
Second edition.
Business Library » Online resource » (no call number)
Elements of Style (book cover)
The elements of style / by William Strunk, Jr. ; with revisions, an introduction, and a chapter on writing by E.B. White.
4th ed. Boston : Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
Green Library » InfoCenter: Ready Reference (non-circulating) » PE1408 .S772 2000
Everyone's an author
Everyone's an author / Andrea Lunsford ... [et al.].
1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton and Co., c2013.
Green Library » Stacks » PE1408 .L873 2013
FranklinCovey Style guide for business and technical communication
FranklinCovey Style guide for business and technical communication [electronic resource].
5th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : FT Press, c2012.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Global English Style Guide
The global English style guide [electronic resource] : writing clear, translatable documentation for a global market / John R. Kohl.
Cary, N.C. : SAS Institute, c2008.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Letting Go of the Words
Letting go of the words [electronic resource] : writing Web content that works / Janice (Ginny) Redish.
Amsterdam ; Boston : Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, c2007.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Line by Line
Line by line : how to edit your own writing / Claire Kehrwald Cook.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1985.
Green Library » InfoCenter (non-circulating) » PE1441 .C66 1985
On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction
On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser.
30th anniversary ed., 7th ed., rev. and updated. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.
Green Library » Stacks » PE1429 .Z5 2006
Persuasive Writing : how to harness the power of words
Persuasive writing [electronic resource] : how to harness the power of words / Peter Frederick.
Harlow, England ; New York : Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2011.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Punctuation at work : simple principles for achieving clarity and good style
Punctuation at work [electronic resource] : simple principles for achieving clarity and good style / Richard Lauchman.
New York : AMACOM, c2010.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Science research writing for non-native speakers of English
Science research writing for non-native speakers of English / Hilary Glasman-Deal.
London : Imperial College Press ; Singapore ; Hackensack, NJ : Distributed by World Scientific Pub., 2010.
SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Stacks » PE1475 .G57 2010
A scientific approach to scientific writing
A scientific approach to scientific writing / John Blackwell, Jan Martin.
New York : Springer, c2011.
SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Stacks » T11 .B543 2011
Sin and Syntax
Sin and syntax : how to craft wickedly effective prose / Constance Hale ; foreword by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
1st ed. New York : Broadway Books, c1999.
Green Library » Stacks » PE1408 .H299 1999
Style and ethics of communication in science and engineering
Style and ethics of communication in science and engineering [electronic resource] / Jay D. Humphrey, Jeffrey W. Holmes.
San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2009.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Style : lessons in clarity and grace
Style : lessons in clarity and grace / Joseph M. Williams, the University of Chicago ; revised by Joseph Bizup.
Eleventh edition.
Education Library (Cubberley) » Stacks » PE1421 .W545 2014

English language > Technical English

› See all 118 results
  1. Plain language and ethical action : a dialogic approach to technical content in the twenty-first century

    Russell Willerton. 2015

  2. Scientific Babel : how science was done before and after global English

    Michael D. Gordin. 2015

  3. The bilingual advantage : language, literacy and the US labor market

    Edited by Rebecca M. Callahan and Patricia C. Gándara. 2014

  4. Style : lessons in clarity and grace

    Joseph M. Williams, the University of Chicago ; revised by Joseph Bizup. 2014

  5. Technical writing with style, sixth edition [electronic resource]

    Kenneth Lachnicht. 2014

Style guides

Bibliography management & style guides

Bibliography management tools (also known as citation or reference management tools) help you organize your research sources and generate bibliographies in muliple citation formats.

Scientific Style and Format 8th Edition
Scientific style and format : the CSE manual for authors, editors, and publishers / Style Manual Subcommittee, Council of Science Editors.
Eighth edition.
Marine Biology Library (Miller) » Reference (non-circulating) » T11 .S386 2014
Developed by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the leading professional association in science publishing, Scientific Style and Format encompasses all areas of the sciences.  The eighth edition was comprehensively reorganized, and its style recommendations were updated to align with the advice of authoritative international bodies.  Also new to the eighth edition are guidelines and examples for citing online images and information graphics, podcasts and webcasts, online videos, blogs, social networking sites, and e-books. Style instructions for physics, chemistry, genetics, biological sciences, and astronomy were adjusted to reflect developments in each field. The coverage of numbers, units, mathematical expressions, and statistics were revised and now includes more information on managing tables, figures, and indexes.  Additionally, a full discussion of plagiarism and other aspects of academic integrity is incorporated, along with a complete treatment of developments in copyright law, including Creative Commons.
The ACS style guide : effective communication of scientific information.
3rd ed. / Washington, DC : American Chemical Society ; Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Request at circulation desk » QD8.5 .A25 2006
"An essential constant in this changing environment is the requirement that information remain accurate, clear, unambiguous, and ethically sound. The ACS Style Guide is the definitive source for all information needed to write, review, submit, and edit scholarly and scientific manuscripts. It is also an excellent resource for learning how to effectively communicate scientific information." (publisher's description)
AIP style manual
AIP style manual / prepared under the direction of the AIP Publication Board.
4th ed. New York, N.Y. : American Institute of Physics, 1990.
SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Stacks » QC5.45 .A45 1990
For guidance in writing, editing, and preparing physics manuscripts for publication. Prepared under the direction of the American Institute of Physics Publication Board. Images are available free-of-charge for downloading from this site in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF).
Chicago manual of style
Chicago manual of style [electronic resource] / University of Chicago Press.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Digital technologies have revolutionized publishing in the twenty-first century, but one thing hasn’t changed: The Chicago Manual of Style remains an indispensable reference for all who work with words—the authoritative, trusted source that writers, editors, and publishers turn to for guidance.
Citing medicine
Citing medicine [electronic resource] : the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers / Karen Patrias ; Daniel L. Wendling, technical editor.
2nd ed. Bethesda, Md. : Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2007.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Citing Medicine provides assistance to authors in compiling lists of references for their publications, to editors in revising such lists, to publishers in setting reference standards for their authors and editors, and to librarians and others in formatting bibliographic citations.
The manual of scientific style
The manual of scientific style [electronic resource] : a guide for authors, editors, and researchers / edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Suzanne Vogel.
1st ed. Amsterdam ; Boston : Academic Press/Elsevier, c2009.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
This book addresses all stylistic matters in the relevant disciplines of physical and biological science, medicine, health, and technology. It presents consistent guidelines for text, data, and graphics, providing a comprehensive and authoritative style manual that can be used by the professional scientist, science editor, general editor, science writer, and researcher.
Style and ethics of communication in science and engineering
Style and ethics of communication in science and engineering [electronic resource] / Jay D. Humphrey, Jeffrey W. Holmes.
San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2009.
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
In addition to presenting methods for writing clearly and concisely and improving oral presentations, this compact book provides practical guidelines for preparing theses, dissertations, journal papers for publication, and proposals for research funding. Issues of authorship, peer review, plagiarism, recordkeeping, and copyright are addressed in detail, and case studies of research misconduct are presented to highlight the need for proactive attention to scientific integrity.

Dictionaries

McGraw-Hill dictionary of scientific and technical terms.
6th ed. New York : McGraw-Hill, c2003.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Reference (non-circulating) » Q123 .M34 2003
For more than a quarter of a century, this amazingly comprehensive dictionary has been a standard international reference. Containing more than 115,000 terms and 125,000 definitions--from 100 areas of science and technology--this trusted resource provides definitions written in clear, simple language, understandable to the general reader, yet is consistent with the specialized use of the term.
Oxford reference online [electronic resource].
Premium collection Oxford ; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, c2002-
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
Oxford Reference Online brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's biggest and most trusted reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource. The Premium Collection offers a huge range of fully-indexed, extensively linked, up to date, and cross-searchable dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.
Oxford english dictionary
Oxford English dictionary [electronic resource].
Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press, [2000]-
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » (no call number)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words—past and present—from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You'll still find these in the OED, but you'll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to films scripts and cookery books.
Hawley's condensed chemical dictionary
Hawley's condensed chemical dictionary.
15th ed. / Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley-Interscience, c2007.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Reference (non-circulating) » QD5 .C74 2007
This book is a compilation of technical data and descriptive information covering thousands of chemicals and chemical phenomena, trade name products, processes, reactions, products, and related terminology.
IUPAC compendium of chemical terminology
IUPAC compendium of chemical terminology [electronic resource] : the gold book.
Version 1.0.0. [Research Triangle Park, N.C.] : International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, 2006.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Media » QD5 .I86 2006
The Compendium is popularly referred to as the "Gold Book", in recognition of the contribution of the late Victor Gold, who initiated work on the first edition. It is one of the series of IUPAC "Colour Books" on chemical nomenclature, terminology, symbols and units, and collects together terminology definitions from IUPAC recommendations already published in Pure and Applied Chemistry and in the other Colour Books. The result is a collection of nearly 7000 terms, with authoritative definitions, spanning the whole range of chemistry.
Quantities, units and symbols in physical chemistry
Quantities, units and symbols in physical chemistry / prepared for publication by E. Richard Cohen ... [et al.].
3rd ed. Cambridge, UK : RSC Pub., c2007.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Reference (non-circulating) » QD451.5 .Q36 2007
The objective of this manual is to improve the exchange of scientific information among readers in different disciplines and across different nations. As the volume of scientific literature expands, each discipline has a tendency to retreat into its own jargon. This book attempts to provide a readable compilation of widely used terms and symbols from many sources together with brief understandable definitions.

Teaching

EServer Technical Communication Library

The EServer Technical Communication Library is a free, open-access, categorized index of 21,910 works available online for professional, scientific and technical communicators (such as technical writers).

EServer Technical Communication Library
Powers of Scriptwriting
The power of scriptwriting! : teaching essential writing skills through podcasts, graphic novels, movies, and more / Peter Gutiérrez.
Education Library (Cubberley) » Stacks » LB1576 .G88 2014
Writing across the chemistry curriculum : an instructor's handbook
Writing across the chemistry curriculum : an instructor's handbook / Jeffrey Kovac, Donna W. Sherwood.
Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall, c2001.
Chemistry & ChemEng Library (Swain) » Stacks » QD9.15 .K68 2001

Technical writing > Study and teaching

› See all 29 results
  1. Lexical bundles in native and non-native scientific writing : applying a corpus-based study to language teaching

    Danica Salazar (University of Oxford). 2014

  2. Introduction to scientific publishing [electronic resource] : backgrounds, concepts, strategies

    Andreas Öchsner. 2013

  3. Reading, writing, and proving [electronic resource] : a closer look at mathematics

    Ulrich Daepp, Pamela Gorkin. 2011

Writing Centers

Stanford University > Center for Teaching and Learning > Oral Communication Program
Stanford University > George and Leslie Hume Writing Center
Stanford University > School of Engineering Technical Communication Program
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
University of Toronto > Advice on Academic Writing
Yale College Writing Center
Yale University Graduate Writing Center