Hey /lit/ friendos. /Sci/entist here who, upon my first research opportunity, discovered that being a good scientist means being a good writer first and good scientist second (why the fuck doesn't anyone tell you this in school). I want to expand my vocabulary and my mental "pocket book phrases" to use in writing by reading good literature.
1. Do you recommend reading a certain author in particular to accomplish these goals or will just reading good literature in general help me?
2. Do yall recommend getting a Kindle? I fucking hate screens since I stare at them all day and I think the ink display ones would be neat.
read science articles
>>8231286
I do that for like 4 hours a day already cuh I want some pleasure reading recommendations
>>8231293
read the wiki
>>8231293
if you can't pick up on how to write like a scientist from reading journal articles then what do you expect to get out of fiction?
>>8231271
Why the hell would you think reading literature would help you write science well?
Unless your goal is to be the next Brian Green and sell a bunch of purple-ass descriptions to a publisher scientific writing shouldn't be "literary". You be as concise and precise as you can and use the simplest language possible.
At least that's the blueprint for good science. Most of academia nowadays does the exact opposite because they're pressured to publish shit work
>>8231271
>1. Do you recommend reading a certain author in particular to accomplish these goals or will just reading good literature in general help me?
it doesn't work like that, bingeing on hemingway won't turn you into a drunk.
>Do yall recommend getting a Kindle?
they're nice, i used to have a nook but it broke so i mostly just read off books or this. it's preference. e-ink doesn't hurt your eyes.
>>8231298
Conveying ideas in writing is a universal skill. If you have the ability to convey an entire fantasy world to a reader you should have no problem conveying how you conducted your experiment
>>8231271
>being a good scientist means being a good writer first and good scientist second
You'll never be a good scientist, first or second
>>8231374
Eat my balls m8
>>8231271
You definitely want to read some Borges m8. Ficciones is a must, followed by The Aleph. Or you could man up and by his Collected Fictions.
I think Dostoyevsky would also be a good idea. Not only because everyone should read Dosto, but he has a way with explaining rationale and reasoning that is fluid and familiar.
If you just want some wordsmith prose masturbation, read Joyce, Woolf, Melville, or Proust. But if you're not into literature you'll probably find them dry and long-winded
>>8231271
You may get a lot of bullshit responses OP, but here's my advice.
Read some of the 19th century German philosophers, such as Nietzsche/Schopenhauer/etc.
Not so much for understanding them, though that's always a plus, but for their writing style. Early Prussian education produced some of the world's last polymaths - and so if you want to know what the writing of those who are informed in many subjects looks like, they're your guys.
