science - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Biomedical Computing: Digitizing Life in the United States

By Scott J. Pearson | June 28, 2020June 28, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Confession: I work in the field of biomedical computing as a software developer. After journeying through a BS in computer science and medical school, I desire to devote much of my life towards advancing this field along with other bookish pursuits. So this book, by its title, caught my interest. November does an excellent job of chronicling the advance of applying computing towards biomedical pursuits. Much of the early advances in computing came at the…

Writing-Communication

Writing to Learn

By Scott J. Pearson | November 30, 2019November 29, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

While alive, Zinsser was our era’s guru on writing. Besides bestselling On Writing Well, he left us with a cadre of lesser-known works on how to communicate effectively. This work chronicles how to write educational pieces and is replete with examples from a variety of fields, ranging from music to geology and from physics to art. Zinsser’s authority is relatively unquestioned in the popular sphere. I do question whether his writing principles are indeed universal,…

Science Writing-Communication

Review: Writing Science in Plain English

By Scott J. Pearson | July 12, 2019July 12, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

My research work is moving from writing code to explaining the software that I’ve written. In general, I enjoy learning about language, and I picked up this book to extend my knowledge as well as to refresh myself on good practices for scientific writing. Scientific writing is often dry and difficult to understand – but as Greene points out, it doesn’t have to be. By following good writing practices (in the tradition of the famed…