A detailed guide to English usage, with a particular focus on discouraging academic writers from unnecessary jargon.
Romero (A Soldier’s Story, 2008) offers a comprehensive reference guide to academic writing. Arranged in alphabetical order, the book provides definitions and explains the subtle differences in meaning that allow authors to write fluently. Take, for example, his explanation of synonyms for animal: “When the word is applied to a human being in other than a scientific context, the emphasis is on depravity or amorality. Creature does not have this range of possibility in meaning; it refers invariably to all living beings other than plants. When a human being is referred to by this word, however, pity or contempt is usually present.” Many of the book’s recommendations are couched in no-nonsense terms: “Avoid ablative as a big word that impresses no one.” Romero is particularly adamant about encouraging writers to cut words that add length without enhancing meaning: “A proposal is a plan put forward for consideration or discussion by others. It is also an offer of marriage. As in both cases, they must be real or solid. To put concrete, (sic) therefore to precede proposals is redundant.” Other entries in the lexicon clarify easily confused terms (“He is an ingenious inventor, but disingenuous in his relations”) and spellings (“ ‘Please pass the saccharin,’ she said with a saccharine smile”). A thorough index guides readers through the book’s many cross-references. Occasionally, a suggestion seems unnecessary for contemporary writers; it is unlikely, for instance, that modern academics need to be told to “CHANGE We have some negro students. TO We have some black students.” Such items may be of little use to institutions in the United States, but on the whole, the book can serve as a valuable addition to a writer’s bookshelf.
Much-needed guidance for academics looking to strip their writing of unnecessary words and awkward usage.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480098527
Page Count: 376
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: EDUCATION
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Comprehensive, myth-busting examination of the Colorado high-school massacre.
“We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened,” writes Cullen, a Denver-based journalist who has spent the past ten years investigating the 1999 attack. In fact, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold conceived of their act not as a targeted school shooting but as an elaborate three-part act of terrorism. First, propane bombs planted in the cafeteria would erupt during lunchtime, indiscriminately slaughtering hundreds of students. The killers, positioned outside the school’s main entrance, would then mow down fleeing survivors. Finally, after the media and rescue workers had arrived, timed bombs in the killers’ cars would explode, wiping out hundreds more. It was only when the bombs in the cafeteria failed to detonate that the killers entered the high school with sawed-off shotguns blazing. Drawing on a wealth of journals, videotapes, police reports and personal interviews, Cullen sketches multifaceted portraits of the killers and the surviving community. He portrays Harris as a calculating, egocentric psychopath, someone who labeled his journal “The Book of God” and harbored fantasies of exterminating the entire human race. In contrast, Klebold was a suicidal depressive, prone to fits of rage and extreme self-loathing. Together they forged a combustible and unequal alliance, with Harris channeling Klebold’s frustration and anger into his sadistic plans. The unnerving narrative is too often undermined by the author’s distracting tendency to weave the killers’ expressions into his sentences—for example, “The boys were shooting off their pipe bombs by then, and, man, were those things badass.” Cullen is better at depicting the attack’s aftermath. Poignant sections devoted to the survivors probe the myriad ways that individuals cope with grief and struggle to interpret and make sense of tragedy.
Carefully researched and chilling, if somewhat overwritten.Pub Date: April 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-54693-5
Page Count: 406
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
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BOOK REVIEW
Inspirational lessons from the life of one tough teacher.
Today’s parents who lament their children stressing over tests may be horrified by the themes of tough love and tenacity offered by this biographical tribute to the late Jerry Kupchynsky, “Mr. K,” a gifted high school strings teacher from East Brunswick, N.J., whose exacting methods helped spawn the careers of generations of musicians and educators. Journalist Lipman and Kupchynsky, a violinist and Mr. K’s daughter, met as children when Mr. K joined his daughter’s exceptional talents on violin with Lipman’s on viola to form half of a string quartet that would also include Kupchynsky’s younger sister, whose disappearance decades later reunited the authors. The bond forged through the intensity of creating music is but one of the storylines running through this engrossing account of Mr. K’s life. Born in 1928 in the Ukraine, Mr. K endured a litany of wartime atrocities before immigrating to the United States as a refugee in 1946. But prior to fleeing to the U.S., it was the sound of a German soldier playing the violin that sparked his love for classical music. Surviving these early hardships helped instill in Mr. K an appreciation of adversity as a motivator, an unflagging belief in the value of hard work and a willingness to fight for the underdog. With a booming Ukrainian accent and “trim” mustache, Mr. K’s battle-ax demeanor and perfectionist drive struck both fear and a ferocious desire to succeed in the hearts of his pupils. One of his more unforgiving approaches involved singling out a section’s weakest player—“Who eez deaf in first violins?”—and forcing the guilty party to play alone with a stronger player until the weak one improved. While tactics like these may not have earned his students’ immediate devotion, they never forgot him and often found they could achieve more than they ever dreamed.
Moving and motivating—a must-read for practicing professionals and would-be musicians.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2466-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | EDUCATION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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