Biomedical Research

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It is a distinct pleasure to be invited to prepare a short Foreword to Biomedical Research: How to plan, publish and present it, by William F. Whimster. Ninety years have elapsed since T. Clifford Allbutt, the Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, published his c1assic work of 1904 Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers. Small in size, but deep in wisdom, it remains a remarkably useful, if slightly old-fashioned, book, still weIl worth reading. Since 1904, and particularly in the last 25 years, there has been an avalanche of books on scientific style. Medawar has aptly observed that "most scientists do not know how to write, insofar as style betrays I' homme meme, they write as if they hated writing and want­ ed nothing more than to have done with it. " Whimster's book has a broader objective than most of this genre. Unlike Allbutt, who was addressing in the main those who were writing their theses to obtain the MD, Whimster writes for the young medical scientists who are planning and writing up an account of their research, either for pub­ lication in scientific journals, or for presentation of the scientific material at meetings. Whimster, a scientist and an experienced long­ term science editor, has written an up-to-date version of an earlier and very successful volume, Research, How to Plan, Speak and Write About It, edited by C. Hawkins and M. Sorgi.