Writing to Learn

Those of us who teach science and other technical subjects have always felt insecure about writing. It’s not that we felt stupid—we knew that we could deal well with ideas and that we understood our discipline. But somehow when it came to putting words on paper it never came out right, and we heard about it,

Clear writing is the logical arrangement of thought; a scientist who thinks clearly can write as well as the best writer.

the essay has nothing in it that doesn’t support the argument

By the end of the term all the students said how much better they understood a subject by having to write about it.

a piece of writing is a piece of thinking

The bad habits are just too habitual

Writing and thinking and learning were the same process.

thought of how often as a writer I had made clear to myself some subject I had previously known nothing about by just putting one sentence after another—by reasoning my way in sequential steps to its meaning. I thought of how often the act of writing even the simplest document—a letter, for instance—had clarified my half-formed ideas.

As Davies says in his introduction, the new physicists have “had to learn to approach their subject in totally unexpected and novel ways that seemed to turn common sense on its head and find closer accord with mysticism than materialism.

Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else’s writing. They think it’s unethical—which is commendable. Or they’re afraid they’ll lose their own identity.