Being a Scientist

Being a Scientist is wide in its scope, covering such topics as research ethics to scientific writing. Written with a more personable style, this book will help research trainees, and will be an excellent single resource for students.

- Pasan Fernando, Department of Biology, Carleton University

I've been arguing with Being a Scientist - and that's exactly what I suggest readers should do. It's even what Schmidt suggests (implicitly) readers should do, by including 'skepticism' in his treatment of scientific ethos. As Schmidt points out in his Introduction, few questions around how science is or should be done have clean and simple answers. Being a Scientist should start conversations - mentor with mentee, or labmate with labmate. I would have learned a lot from discussing this book early in my career. I learned some things reading it even now.

- Stephen Heard, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick

Science faculty are not trained to teach writing, and that is a skill that needs to be developed if one is to teach such a course. Many science faculty feel that it is not possible to grade writing fairly or consistently. Furthermore, there is still an unfortunate attitude among some faculty that students should learn these skills by osmosis. Thus, the challenges are both in having faculty with the skills to teach such courses and overcoming the belief that such courses are not necessary. Being a Scientist addresses both issues. The discussion of overcoming doubts is excellent. Second, having rubrics, discussion guides, and explicit learning objectives at hand will be very useful for students in most science fields.

- Penny J. Beuning, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University