Writing Matters: Faculty Edition

Writing Matters: a series about writing's connection with academic and professional success.
Everyone, no matter what their field, needs the ability to communicate effectively in a range of situations. Academic and professional success depend upon it. Stanford's President, John Hennessy, a computer scientist and electrical engineer, once put it this way: "[In college] we had a notion that engineers had to know how to use slide rules or calculators or computers but not how to write. And that is the biggest falsehood you could possibly perpetrate on young people. I think writing and rhetoric -- public speaking -- are the two most valuable skills across any discipline in any field." Nicholas Jenkins, Faculty Director of PWR, asked ten members of Stanford's faculty in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering about the importance of communication in their disciplines and about why writing matters to them.
Writing Matters Videos
Christopher Edwards
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Christopher Edwards, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.
Margot Gerritsen
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Margot Gerritsen, Associate Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University and Director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering.
Deborah M. Gordon
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Deborah M. Gordon, Professor of Biology at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
Susan Holmes
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Susan Holmes, Professor of Statistics and Bio-X at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Mathematical and Computational Sciences Interdisciplinary Program.
Mark Kasevich
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Mark Kasevich, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University.
Julie Kennedy
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Julie Kennedy, Professor (Teaching) of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University.
Susan McConnell
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Susan McConnell, Susan B. Ford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Biology at Stanford University.
Mehran Sahami
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Mehran Sahami, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.
Ravi Vakil
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Ravi Vakil, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University.
Richard N. Zare
PWR Faculty Director Nicholas Jenkins speaks with Richard N. Zare, Margaret Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University.