Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt.

  • Allbutt, T. Clifford (Thomas Clifford), 1836-1925.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    PREFACE In the course of the year I peruse sixty or seventy theses for the degree of M.B. and about twenty- five for the degree of M.D. The matter of these theses is good, it is often excellent; in composition a few are good, but the greater number are written badly, some very ill indeed. The prevailing defect of their composition is not mere inelegance; were it so, it were unworthy of educated men: it is such as to obscure, to perplex, and even to hide or to travesty the sense itself. Thus, for the judge who would be just, many of the theses are very hard reading; and, meritorious as in substance they may be, are, as they stand, unfit for the printer. The use of thesis - writing is to train the mind, or to prove that the mind has been trained; the former purpose is, I trust, promoted, the evidences of the latter are scanty and occasional. Thus, when the Act is kept, we are often forced, against our desire, to dwell on faults of form to some exclusion of the argument. It seemed to me, therefore, that if,