Research Books

I've owned both editions of this wonderful little book. This little gem is for the person who doesn't have time to slog through all sorts of prescriptive grammars. It's handy, well organized, and easy to use. I own a lot of grammars, being both an author and an English teacher, and this is the one I turn to first.

Author of:
Nasty

"Nate Jepson (a.k.a. "Nasty") is a solid entry into the P.I. hall of fame." - Publisher's Weekly

A good friend who must really love me gave me this book when I headed to grad school. It answered all of my APA citation questions and many of the little grammatical quandries one encounters at 3 a.m.
I only wish I had the budget to buy this book for all of my high school students. Every young writer should have a guide like this to tidy up their work. Alas, at about $50 a pop, with a school of 350 students, this book is out of our range. If you can pick one up used or can afford a new copy you won't be sorry.

As one of Andrea's former students, I've had to read this book and use it extensively. Not only did it get me through her class, but every class I had after that (and I've had a large number of English and History classes). If you're looking for a book to help you with MLA style, Professor Lunsford covers everything you can possibly hope to draw info from, including lectures, interviews, and even MUDs online.

This book is an ideal tool for anyone who has to write for school, work, or as a hobby. The easy access tabs and extensive menus help you find what you are looking for quickly and the spiral binding lets you lay the book open while you type. The coverage of the writing process and argumentative writing really set this book apart. Anybody can write up grammar rules or documentation standards, but Lunsford's coverage of writing at the start of the book is wonderful. Buy this book and don't sell it back to the bookstore, this is a keeper. Also, for the teacher that wants one for every student, try "Easywriter" which is the smaller version of this text that only costs about fifteen bucks.

The Everyday Writer is a wonderful asset to any college English student. It contains all the essentials for writing term papers. I suggest that everyone who needs help in English should pick up this book.

I ordered this book directly from Amazon and delivery was prompt with the book fully intact, condition as expected and without any problems. Amazon also, promptly answered any questions I had regarding the order. ORDER DIRECTLY FROM AMAZON.

I had the item expedited and it arrived within the disgnated 48 hours. One drawback - since I was not home, UPS left a note and I only received the book the following day.

Bit more writing in the margins than I expected.

This is the best legal textbooks I've ever used. The writing is straightforward and clear, and the examples are interesting and well-written. Really a marvelous tool for teaching and learning evidence.

This book is set up great. I like how there are cases, but no little like "notes" at the bottom of the pages. It explains the specific area of Evidence well in relation to the cases and gives good problems to work out so you can make sure you understand the topic. Great book!!

The Evidence-Based Practice Manual (Roberts & Yeager, 2004) provides an invaluable resource for social workers who want to be on top of their game. Of the many challenges I face as a social worker, two of the most daunting are: 1) Sorting through the plethora of literature to find the most salient practice wisdom, and 2) applying the findings in evidenced-based practice in my work with clients. This compendium provides the kind of clinical direction and empirical support clinicians rarely find in the field.

Each of the 104 chapters in this volume presents the "best of social work" in a thoughtful and informed context. Section I provides an overview of evidence-based practice and reviews critical issues in how practice becomes evidence-based. Section II reports on research ethics and step-by-step research grant guidelines. Rather than being dry and boring, these chapters sparked my imagination about ways that my own practice could contribute to the academic knowledge base. Sections III (Diagnosis, interventions and outcome research), V (Measurement), and VI (assessment tools and measures), are the equivalent of a clinical master class. The 36 chapters in these three sections provide the best information for practitioners that are available in a single edition. Sections IV (Epidemiological and Health Research), VII (Program Evaluation Skill Development), VIII (Qualitative Research Methods and Exemplars), and IX (Quantitative Research Exemplars) address the state of the art in social work research. Section X (Establishing, Monitoring, and Maintaining Quality and Operational Improvement) has particular relevance in this day of managed-care and 3rd party reimbursement. The editors have done a remarkable job at pulling together 10 sections of top-notch writing and research on topics which accurately reflect the multi-faceted nature of social work practice.

Perhaps it's most important contribution is that the Evidence-Based Practice Manual celebrates the power and diversity of social work practice not through touchy-feely, friendly-visitor rhetoric, but rather through 104 chapters which demonstration empirically-based approaches to making our world a better place. I believe that the general public would gain respect for the profession by reading this book. I also believe that graduate schools of social work should require their students to purchase this book. There is no class offered in graduate social work that does not benefit from these readings. I wish I had such a compendium when I was in school. As a professional in the field, I'm grateful to have it now. Perhaps this compendium will provide a stepping-stone into the next phase of the profession's development.

Roberts & Yeager have accomplished a book that represents the most comprehensive treatment of evidence-based practice---it's the standard, bar none. There is everything in here between 2 covers. The book traverses a vast expanse of territory with surprising depth and clarity, all the way from treating the individual psychotherapy client to evaluating the outcomes of complex community programs. I especially believe every program evaluator or outcomes researcher will want this text on his or her bookshelf. The Evidence-based Practice Manual will be the standard in this field for years to come

Drs. Roberts and Yeager have clearly outdone themselves in one of the most informative books for professionals published in the past 10 years. This incredible volume contains specifcs on best-practices, evidenced-based models, assessment tools, research exemplars, research ethics, and more. These cutting-edge protocols are a must for all professionals and are presented in one practical book. Experts from multiple disciplines have contributed to make this a manual tailor-made for busy professionals. Go ahead and throw out those useless books on your shelves and replace them with this incredibly helpful and easy-to-use volume. You'll wonder how you've worked without it all this time.

The authors of this book have compiled a series of chapters by renowned scholars and practitioners to explore the use of evidence in practice decisions. For its breadth, the book delivers substantive discourse on the state of evidence, its accessibility, its continuing development and its utilization by practitioners. Competing discourses can be found on the merit of quantitative vs qualitative research methodologies, the nature of evidence and the criteria for assessing its strength. The book contains practical exemplars of practice-based research as well as chapters on the evidence for particular clinical conditions. Chapters on process and outcome program evaluation are also included. Practitioners, academics and researchers who are concerned about best practices, should have a copy on their desk. Reference librarians should have a copy on their shelves.

Roberts and Yeager hit the mark with this indispensable desk reference, which caters not only to professionals in a variety of fields, but to students and informed citizens alike. The Evidence-Based Practice Manual is the ultimate guide to information ranging from issues in public health to psychology to criminal justice. With the broad spectrum of topics, which the manual covers, as well as, the in depth view into the scope of the issues, finding answers to your questions is inevitable. This versatile manual truly takes the concept of evidence-based practice to the next level. If only I had a copy of this book during my senior year in college, it would have saved me numerous hours in the library searching for the latest evidence-based and practice research articles to document in my term papers. Thus, I strongly recommended it for experts and novices, as well as, everyone in between.

Any aviation enthusiast will enjoy this book as it documenters the early years of Edwards Air force base testing jet aircraft beyond mach one to the super fast X15 to the present day fly off of the joint strike fighter project.

Full of high quality photographs and brief history of each aircraft from prototype to production models and some that only made the mock-up stage.

Highly recommended.

I have always enjoyed reading and watching film and videos of the history of flight,especially the early days of supersonic flight. This book is a terrific historical tome on the evolution of the US AIR FORCE fighter force during the years since the days of the P-80 and the early supersonic testbeds that have lead to legends such as the F-86,F-100, F-4 Phantom and the other fine jet fighters of the second half of the 20th century.

I recommend this read to anyone who loves aviation and is interested in its history

This is another outstanding aviation book from Specialty Press and is a fitting companion to their U.S. NAVAL SUPERIORITY: DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPBORNE JET FIGHTERS - 1943-1962. The quality of the writing is excellent and authoritative, and the protographs are of high quality and illustrate the subject matter very well. More color would have been welcomed; however, the quality of the black and white photos in the book is probably far superior to most surviving color photos from the 1940s and early 1950s.

Coverage of the topic is comprehensive and begins with some of the last propeller-driven designs that were developed in an attempt to squeeze out the last bit of performance prior to the transition to jets. It finishes with the JSF prototypes, which brings the book right up to the present.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in military aircraft development.

In 2001, Lockheed Martin landed the mother lode of aircraft design contracts -- the Joint Strike Fighter. The winning design team developed the F-35 fighter in three versions filling the needs of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps -- for a long time to come.

Back in the cold war days, aircraft designers like Jack Northrup scrambled against other greats like Bud Flesh and Alexander Kartveli to develop a wide range of jet fighter types. The Air Force's shopping list included all-weather fighters, point-defense fighters, penetration fighters, interceptors and long-range interceptors -- lots of development work for all the manufacturers -- a few successful -- most short lived.

Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony R. Landis cover these gold rush days and have delivered just what Air Force junkies have always wanted: the gold standard of jet fighter development books.

They have done a superior job of exploring the family tree of successful and dead-end jet fighters in great detail with a clear, concise, readable style.

"Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters" is a high quality, glossy, format book with a "jackpot" of intriguing photographs (many in color), instructive drawings and illustrations in 12 chapters.

Many of the wonderful interior photographs, diagrams and engineering drawing were taken from U.S. Air Force documents. The graphics alone make this one of the finest aircraft books, I have ever seen.

Readers will enjoy the extensive coverage of the famous Century Series from the cold war days, as well as jet fighters participating in the Gulf Wars.

Of great interest, the authors have featured the development of the hot new stealth fighters such as the Lockheed Martin YF-22, and Lockheed X-35 as well as their rivals: Northrop YF-23 and Boeing X-32.

Long forgotten, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Landis present a rare failure from Kelly Johnson's famed Skunk works -- the Lockheed XF-90 penetration fighter. The authors explain, "the airplane looked every inch the modern, high-performance fighter, but produced disappointing results."

During the cold war, fighter technology had not progressed enough to deliver a good all-purpose fighter. Using the 'shotgun' approach, manufacturers were simultaneously tasked with developing specific jets to fill the all-weather, point-defense, penetration fighter, and long-range interceptor missions.

The real mother lode of this book are the comprehensive chapters of long forgotten early jets like the Lockheed XP-80, Republic XP-84 Thunder series, Curtis XP-87 Blackhawk and Lockheed XF-94 Starfire -- complete with excellent photographs.

This book is a must buy for jet fighter fans. "Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters" continues the publishing excellence of previous works from Specialty Press.

No one presents aviation history better than the team of Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony R. Landis. Few authors match the scope and breadth of their research, their painstaking accuracy and their meticulous attention to detail. Virtually none match their ability to unearth previously unpublished information on interesting aircraft. "Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters" is an outstanding example of Jenkins and Landis at their best. Very much in the tradition of their earlier works "Valkyrie" and "Hypersonic," this latest book covers some of the most fascinating aircraft ever built. There are no "paper airplanes" here. All of them reached the hardware stage.

The decade just after the end of World War II saw a bumper crop of experimental and prototype aircraft, as the U.S. Air Force, faced with the nuclear challenge of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, tried to tame the relatively new jet engine technology for its fighters and bombers. This was the time when the famous "Century Series" fighters--the North American F-100, McDonnell F-101, Convair F-102, Lockheed F-104, Republic F-105 and Convair F-106--first flew, and when other even-more-advanced concepts, such as the Republic XF-103 and North American XF-108, were on the drawing boards.

The first eight chapters of "Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters" (about 75 per cent of the book) cover this period, separated into logical, bite-sized chunks such as "The First Jets," "All-Weather Fighters," "Point-Defense Interceptors" and "Penetration Fighters." Chapters 9 through 12 look at later aircraft, such as the Lockheed YF-12, General Dynamics F-111 and F-16, Lockheed F-117 and the Boeing and Lockheed Martin prototypes that led to today's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Exquisitely printed on thick, glossy paper, "Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters" is filled with crisp, sharp, well-captioned photographs and drawings (some of them in stunning full-color) that perfectly complement the authoritative, comprehensive, informative text. The balance of illustrations and text is perfect. Jenkins and Landis did a superb job of digging up rare photographs from government and private archives, and of unearthing hidden details about the aircraft of this period. Their efforts make this volume an exceptional addition to any aviation enthusiast's bookshelf. As an added bonus, you'll find an appendix with historical summaries of the companies that built these aircraft. Most of them eventually succumbed to the frenzy of takeovers and mergers that created the three mega-firms that today dominate America's aerospace industry (Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman). But true aviation "buffs" will never forget storied names, now vanished, such as Bell, Chance Vought, Seversky and Vultee. Here you'll find out what happened to them. Most highly recommended.

I agree with the former Speaker, this is a very important history of the Army in the "'tween years" of the 20's and 30's. The Wehrmacht was way ahead in their understanding of the tanks and tactics. The funniest story in the book is where Patton decides to join the Cavalry so that he can play polo after he is censured for his apostasy on tank warfare as independent of the infantry. We were lucky.

When this book first came out in 1998 it addressed arguably the top priority in national defense planning - how can we ensure that this "peace dividend" is used to develop truly innovative military technology and doctrine? With the events of September 11th and the ushering in of the War on Terror the issue of technology innovation - often covered by the umbrella term "Revolution in Military Affairs" - has certainly slipped down the priority scale, but it would be unwise to suggest that it has lost any of its core relevance.

RAND analyst David Johnson hammers home on a few themes in "Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers." First, he stresses that the primary lesson learned coming out of WWI, at least from the perspective of the top Army brass, was the central importance of mass mobilization of personnel and efficient, large-scale production of supplies and machinery, which to, among other things, the establishment of the Army Industrial College in 1924. Technology was viewed as important, but clearly auxiliary to men and manpower. In the 1920s a deep sense of isolationism and then in the 1930s the economic impact of the Depression kept Army budgets low. The Army chose to allocate its limited resources to maintaining their manpower, which was less than 50% of the limits set by the 1920 National Defense Act. As Army budgets dropped 20%, personnel never slipped more than 5%. Johnson's central argument is that the Army slipped behind in tank technology and doctrine primarily because the Army leadership made a conscious decision to not invest resources in those areas. In the end, it was wrong of them to point a finger at a stingy Congress or an ungrateful American public. They could have invested more in technology and experimentation; they just chose not to.

Second, the tank and the bomber were developed under starkly different organizational and cultural conditions. The tank was developed in parallel in the 1930s by the infantry and cavalry. Each sub-service saw the tank as an instrument to aid in their strategic mission, not as a fundamentally new way to fight. The cavalry likely missed the greatest opportunity with the tank. It is shocking to read to what lengths many went to defend the horse cavalry, first holding up Poland as an example of a great modern cavalry force and then arguing that German armored success in Poland in 1939 and France in 1940 didn't prove anything. Johnson's book is populated with a number of well-meaning senior Army officers that come off as real boobs in hindsight, but none more so than Major General John Herr, the chief of cavalry in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The armor doctrine created in this environment, where radical ideas were shunned if not outright prohibited, thus reflected traditional missions and tactics. As last as 1938, Johnson notes, there were more hours in the Command and General Staff College curriculum dedicated to horseback riding than to either armor warfare or air power.

The bomber, on the other hand, developed under a much more permissive intellectual environment and one that put a premium on technology over manpower. The story of US airpower during the interwar period is one of a small, elite renegade cadre of officers fighting for independence. In many ways, it was the example of the air corps that prevented a separate armor force from emerging in the infantry. The end result was a dedicated and highly professional core of officers with top technology and a coherent strategy and doctrine for their service, albeit not without serious shortcomings.

Third, despite great differences in organization and culture, both the armor and air forces made similarly disastrous assumptions about how their weapons would be engaged in the next war. The US tanks - greatly inferior to the German tanks, which were designed to fight other tanks - were in fact precisely what the US military asked for. One of the crucial differences in US armor doctrine was the view that the Armor Force (only created in July 1940) was to exploit gaps in the enemies line, not create the gaps themselves. In this sense, US tanks were seen as rather akin to the traditional horse cavalry - a lightly armed and highly mobile force used to harass rear areas and reconnoiter the battle space. The US focused on tanks of high speed, relative light-weight (to allow the crossing of temporary pontoon bridges) and great reliability; firepower and armor were readily sacrificed to achieve these design objectives. The result when going head-to-head with the Panzer Corps - an eventuality the US Army did not see as the prime role for armor units - was slaughter. The key message is that the US Army was NOT supplied with inferior machines, but rather they did not appreciate the looming nature of modern armored warfare and thus entered the war with the "wrong weapons" but they were the weapons they asked for. Moreover, the US Army was convinced that the best way to fight an armored attack was with anti-tank guns. Tank-on-tank battles were seen as wasteful and never really wargamed.

For their part, the Air Corps doctrine and strategy rested on several key assumptions that turned out to be false in practice. First, it was believed that the B-17 and B-24 could defend themselves from fighter attacks because of their rich complement of .50 caliber machine guns. At first this proved to be the case. However, the German Luftwaffe quickly developed new standoff weapons, such as a .37mm cannon that could hit bomber formations outside the range of the bombers' .50 calibers, and the effective use of dive-bombing tactics on unescorted bombing formations. By late 1943, the odds of a US air corps bomber crewmember surviving a 25 run tour were about 35%. Second, it was presumed that the bombers would be able to accurately bomb their targets in daylight hours. By and large, that was not the case. Finally, the strategic air power theory posited that massive bomber formations could cripple a country's ability to make war by knocking out key industrial nodes, such as the production of ball bearings. Again, that thesis turned out to be far from accurate.

In the end, Johnson makes a convincing case that the failures of tank and bomber technology and doctrine in the Second World War were not a product of limited resources or support, but rather the unwillingness of the Army to invest scarce resources into those technologies and reluctance to engage in spirited and realistic experimentation. Thus Johnston concludes: "The Army, in short, was responsible for its own unprepared ness."

Words cannot do this book justice. This is one of the finest studies of military bureaucracies rejecting change and protecting the old order that has ever been written. Anyone who wants to know how big Rumsfeld's challenge is in trying to transform the Pentagon must read this book.

Johnson was a career soldier before going to RAND. He has a deep sense of how military cultures operate. His portrait of the cavalry wing rejecting modernity is humorous and tragic simultaneously. It is a case study in how large bureaucracies protect themselves and their caste system from being threatened by new developments.

Equally, if not more fascinating, is his conclusion that the Air Corps was equally one sided in favoring its theory of big bombers. While the cavalry drove out officers who believed the time of the horse was past, the Air Corps drove out officers who believed fighter planes were powerful opponents for bombers. In some ways the Air Corps self-blindness was as dangerous as the cavalry's total identification with an obsolete past. The refusal to recognize the vulnerability of the bomber meant that bomber crews in Europe would have the greatest risk of dying of any elements of the American military.

Johnson also reports on the tankers fixation with lighter, less powerful "fast tanks" rather than the heavier, more powerfully armed versions the Germans settled on. The American fixation was on a fast tank that could break through and run amok behind enemy lines but was incapable of standing up to German tanks in one on one fights. The result was a tank that led to many more American casualties than necessary. Interestingly, all post World War II American tank designs have been based on the German model of heavy armor and heavy guns.

This is a very thoughtful book filled with quotes from sincere, serious professional military men who were dead wrong but determined to protect their views and to use their position in the hierarchy to get the job done.

It is a sobering story for anyone who would modernize a large, complex military bureaucracy.

This book provides a compelling and well researched account of how the U.S. Army interpreted its experiences in WWI and how it attempted to transform itself from an internal security force into a modern army ready for an other world war. The author does so by reviewing how the Army reacted to the new weapons systems that emerged from World War I (WWI) and were to dominate military operations for the rest of in the 20th Century. He wisely concentrates on two specific weapons systems: armored fighting vehicles (tanks and armored cars), and by extension mechanization in general; and military aircraft (bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft). The author discusses how U.S. Army attempted to further develop these systems and integrate them into its force structure and force planning. It quickly becomes clear that the unprepared state of the U.S. Army at the start of World War II was the direct result of misunderstanding the implications of these weapon systems for modern warfare and the faulty tactical doctrines that resulted form this misunderstanding. The author demonstrates that the extreme austerity imposed on the Army between the wars exacerbated this unprepared condition, but it was not the sole cause of it. In the end, lack of well thought out doctrines impeded not only the Army's efforts to prepare for modern war, but the development of the weapon systems with which to fight it.

This reviewer would suggest that anyone interested in this book would be well advised to also read a second book, "Beyond the Trenches" by General William E. Odom (ret). In it Odom traces the development of U.S. Army doctrine between the wars and the factors preventing the emergence of a really sound set of doctrines and plans.

This absorbing history of the U.S. Army between the world wars and on into the Second World War illuminates not only the past but the present and future. As his title indicates, author David Johnson traces two main themes: the Army's responses to the challenges and opportunities presented by the airplane and tank. He shows that these responses, although very different, were both seriously inadequate in ways that proved very costly in the test of war -- and he shows why and how these inadequacies developed. Johnson, a former professional Army officer and National War College instructor, is not dedicated to any theoretical framework. He tells the story very clearly and directly, relying on deep research in primary sources, and draws his lessons from the events as they occurred. He understands the people and the institutions and organizations within which they acted, and he views them sympathetically but dispassionately and objectively.

The story Johnson tells is not one of inevitable historical forces but of human decisions. The decisions were made under the influence of institutions and events, but were not determined by them. They were not catastrophic, but they were well short of optimum. Many Americans died as a result of deficiencies that could well have been avoided.

Because it does not tie the story up in a neat theoretical package, Johnson's book offers no canned recipe for success in responding to present and future challenges and opportunities. Instead, it provides a rich source of inspiration and caution, and a stimulus to thought.

There are a few disappointments, although minor in comparison to the book's strengths: (1) I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the part played by technological factors. While we are too often treated to on-dimensional purely technological approaches to such questions, I feel Johnson goes a bit too far in the other direction. (2) Johnson's citation system for sources, while adequate for a brief article, becomes frustratingly cumbersome at book length. It is too often a real struggle to unearth exactly what his source for a given point is.

Another book that can profitably be read as a complement to this one is William O. Odom's _After the Trenches: The Tranformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918-1939_ (Texas A&M U. Press, 1999).

Will O'Neil

Just read this, and thoroughly enjoyed it- I particularly liked the honesty throughout re. the state of Nasa and some of the decisions made over the years. Flaws from the earliest to the current days of the Shuttle program are explored, but this is no witch-hunt- just an honest appraisal of things that went wrong with the Shuttle- but not forgetting, all the great, great things that went right, right too. Wets your appetite for the forthcoming new launch system, too! Recommended.

This is one of the finest books I have read in a while on the space shuttle. With a comprehensive look at how we got into the shuttle, remained there for close to thirty years and now are finally in the process of getting out of. If you don't have acopy of thie book...go out and get one.

I discovered this book while doing research on Kennedy Space Center and found it really helpful. As someone who was "there" during much of the story covered by Duggins, I found his information to be accurate and enlightening. It was also a lot less dry than most of the other related books I was reading on this topic. In particular, I was impressed by his candid narrative. Many of the books I reviewed on KSC and NASA seemed to gloss over issues that may have put the agencies in a bad light, but Duggins was able to tell the truth about what happened using an unbiased voice.

Final Countdown is a great book about NASA's plans for the future of space travel and their intentions of ending the Space Shuttle program. This book explains how the Space Shuttle program evolved along with it's success and tragedies. Author Pat Duggins wrote this book in a way to where it is not only entertaining but educational as well. A nice addition to a space travel book collection!

Final Countdown is an excellent book for Baby Boomers who grew up watching the massive Saturn 5 rockets of the Apollo program lumber off the launch pad and dreamed, one day, of drinking Tang on the Moon or taking a Space vacation. Final Countdown is an excellent book for anyone, regardless of generation, interested in politics, science and man's future in Space.

The book is a well researched history of how America's shining achievement in Space technology was a mistake, a design of political compromise, constrained federal spending and promised secret military payloads. Frank Lloyd Wright would have told NASA that form must follow function, but in the case of the Shuttle, Wright would have learned that function had not been fully defined.

Final Countdown also gives the reader a look at Space exploration beyond the Shuttle program and how NASA has returned to mission-based designs for selecting the vehicle that will likely carry man back to the Moon and possibly on to Mars.

Beyond the well documented history of the Shuttle itself, author Pat Duggins introduces readers to the personalities and individual career turns that ultimately gave life to the Space Shuttle program. He tells the unlikely story of how the demise of plans for a spy agency's secret space program helped shape the Shuttle. Along with the Shuttle's achievements, the book takes readers through the pain and lessons learned from the disasters of Challenger and Columbia.

In the end, the book serves as a wonderful "Program Guide" to the Final Countdown of the Space Shuttle Program and gives readers a reason to anticipate with excitement the next chapter in the story of manned space flight.

If you like experimental aviation, this is a must read.

Completed by Curtis Peebles after the death of Milt Thompson the story of Flying without Wings is told by a pilots pilot. Milt has the uncanny ability to mix the technical engineering side of experimental aviation and then put the reader in the pilots seat for a hair-raising ride from 40,000ft down to the ground.

Milt thompson has written a great book on the hardships of the early attempts at flying with out wings. He describes in detail how the M2F1 was designed and tested and how the program eneded with the futuristic X-24B. A great book and a must read for aviation buffs of all ages.

Lifting body research may be an esoteric subject, but is fascinating for anyone interested in aeronautics; Thompson was in the cockpit during most of the testing of the early forms, and draws an exciting picture of the high risk drama of these pioneering flights. The final chapters link the early research in the 60s with the later design and construction of the Shuttle, and the reader will understand how these "mad monk" test pilots really made the orbiter possible, by proving the validity of the core design. Finally, one interesting note is how the early testing was done with minimal funding, and a lot of do-it-yourself common sense by the teams at Edwards. Those days are certainly gone. Highly recommended if you have an interest in the field, and at least a basic understanding of the terms, concepts, and physics of flight.

The late Milt Thompson, one of the top NASA research test pilots during the glory days of flight testing at Edwards, kept an extensive diary of notes during his years of work. The book digests these notes and presents them in a very readable format that truly captures the imagination of the reader, describing a time of grassroots research and the determination of individuals at Edwards. Thompson, the pilot, and other great engineering minds, notably, Dale Reed, truly believed that there was a better way to bring spacecraft back to earth that didn't involve splashing down somewhere in a large ocean. Their efforts resulted in the construction and testing of the Lifting Bodies, giving us a body of knowledge that led to the Space Shuttle concept and will continue with NASA's newest efforts...the X-38 and Venture Star single stage to orbit concepts. The book is a must for anyone with an interest in this field of aeronautical history.

J.Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have, through compiling this masterful collection of readings, provided a wonderful resource for those of us who want to fundamentally change teacher education in the United States. Since the early part of the 20th Century, what would later become colleges of education, have been dominated by the often-misapplied progressive theories associated with John Dewey. The results of this intellectual dominance include a lack of respect for academic subject matter, a fuzzy romanticism focused upon teachers as societal change agents, and a lowering of standards for aspiring teachers. Progressive orthodoxy so dominates education colleges that future teachers often don't even learn the counter arguments the "forgotten heroes" of this book so effectively make.

Anyone who is involved in the preparation of teachers and is a proponent of such common-sense notions as the paramount role of academic content in teaching, high standards for students, and the teacher's responsibility for academic and moral classroom leadership, should buy this book. Although the most recent essay was penned in 1960, the arguments of these intellectual opponents of the then-emerging progressive conventional wisdom are, for the most part, as fresh today as when written. Carefully reflect upon the essays of such master teachers and scholars as William C. Bagley and Issac L. Kandel who are included in the anthology. Then, if you are involved in teacher education make sure your students experience the genuine intellectual diversity represented in the contents of this book. This is a useful tool in the mounting effort within many education schools to end the progressive intellectual monopoly.

¨Education, true education, should liberate"

By Richard K. Munro MA, Renshaw Fellow UVA 2004

Null, Wesley and Diane Ravitch, Eds. Forgotten Heroes of American Education , Information Age Publishing, Greenwich Connecticut, 2006



America, all is not lost. In 1987 we had The Closing of the American Mind by the late Allan Bloom followed by E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, Diane Ravitch's classics Left Back (2000) and The Language Police (2003). 2006 gave us John Dewey and the Decline of American Education by Henry Edmondson and now FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION edited by Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch. Here we have essays -some published for the first time- from great American educators of the so-called "Traditionalist/Essentialist" school such as William Bagley, Isaac Kandel, Charles DeGarmo, and Charles Alexander McMurray among others, including the forgotten essays of the John Dewey in which Dewey criticizes the excesses of some of his colleagues of the liberal-romantic-progressive school. Here, in FORGOTTEN HEROES we have great appeals to the traditional foundations of wisdom, learning and education but also appeals to her scientific, cultural as well as her authentically progressive foundations. These thinkers have much to say to 21st century America about curriculum, teacher training, the foundations of a proper educational philosophy, student discipline, and the purpose of formal schooling in a free society. Ravitch and Null have added splendid short biographies and commentaries not to mention a list of recommended readings.
Much of the book is dedicated to the vital and still pertinent essays of William Bagley. Like Victor Davis Hanson, Bagley was no mere ivory tower intellectual; he worked in agriculture and owned his own farm. Bagley had wide experience as a classroom teacher, a principal and superintendent. Bagley favored a free liberal education for all Americans regards of their IQ or future occupation. In "The Army Tests and Pro-Nordic Propaganda" Bagley opposed the determinism, extreme social Darwinism and deep racial supremacy of the 1920's as inhumane, un-American and anti-democratic. Bagley's essays CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TEACHING, THE IDEAL TEACHER and EDUCATION AND UTILITY are literary jewels, well-crafted, lucid and informative. Bagley was right to recognize the profound anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism in liberal/romantic/progressive theory. Bagley is a teacher's teacher: he respects the craft of teaching. Bagley understands that teaching is above all a calling and an act of service, sacrifice and love. Teaching could never be an entirely mercenary profession, though a man would say today taking a "vow of poverty" might be going too far! Bagley was one of the first educators to be concerned about the 'blob' the growing non-teaching bureaucracy which considered the classroom teacher to be at the bottom of the profession. Ever the supporter of high educational standards Bagley made a very strong case that the fundamental factor in academic excellence was based on the quality of the classroom teacher.
Isaac Kandel, another of the "forgotten heroes" made his "Address at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University" in 1940, unpublished until this volume. In this age of terror this address is very timely. In it Kandel calls for an educational philosophy with integrity based on deep gratitude for the practical wisdom, Natural Rights philosophy of the Founders as well as the true roots of the "dignity of the individual", America's Judeo-Christian heritage. Only by recurring to fundamental principles, Kandel believed, could we hope to preserve our free society. Kandel wrote "The basic principles of democracy are rooted in the religious traditions of Jew and Christian alike." "Man ....cannot live on negation...he needs values that have stood the test of time." "Education, true education, should liberate~ it should cultivate the genuinely free man, the man of moral judgment, of intellectual integrity.....intolerance and hatred are the foundations of the new [ totalitarian] ideologies~ Love thy neighbor as thyself is the injunction of the Hebrew prophets and of the Golden Rule." These are just some of the gems from Isaac Kandel on a rigorous curriculum: "It is foolish to except a child to grow up in a right social direction along the lines of his own felt wants as it is to expect a man to find his way in unfamiliar territory without a map or a compass. Organized subject matter constitutes that map..." Kandel on low standards: "the harm done American education by the cult of...superficiality is incalculable." Kandel warns that the disunity in America could come again if we fail to provide an education "to inculcate faith in the ideals of democracy....without well-defined content, [there is]... inevitably... a negation of ideals and faith... a repudiation of the inherited forms of culture and of humanity without which the surface changes in the stream of life are mistaken for the waves of the future." Kandel's essay on "Character Formation" (1959) is one of many outstanding contributions. According to Kandel, an important aim in education throughout history is the ideal of character formation. Kandel writes: "with the declining influence of religious institutions....with the extension of mass media...the task of character formation becomes more and more difficult... all these conflicting influences may be added a certain relaxation of standards, both intellectual and disciplinary...the 'get by' attitude." Kandel is so cultivated and yet so moving and so lucid that for his essays alone FORGOTTEN HEROES would be worth it.
Recently I was told the story of a well known professor of education who said: "It doesn't matter what they [teachers] know...All that matters is how they teach." In other words process counts not knowledge, not virtue, not wisdom! So it is true the Deweyite Sophists have taken over the academy particularly in "Teacher Ed"! This is just one true life story of the doctrinaire liberals who dominate in Teacher's Colleges. There Deweyite learning or doctrine -by this I mean the Romantic-progressive school -a traditionless tradition- is practically an established religion. As Hanson, Thornton and Heath have written previously in BONFIRE OF THE HUMANITIES; "... the American academic culture is one of the most glaring failures and embarrassments of modern society itself."
The thesis of FORGOTTEN HEROES is that the tradition of teaching and learning going back to Plato and Aristotle represented by Bagley, Kandel and others has never been extinguished despite the long 20th century ascendancy of Dewey's Liberal-Romantic-Progressive school. The whole point of Bloom, E. D. Hirsch, Null and Ravitch is until teachers improve in quality, and schools improve in discipline and organization all the money in the world will do no good. Disoriented, demoralized American teachers, unprepared by barely relevant teacher education programs, crushed beneath the wheel of a bloated, misguided bureaucracy, unsupported by their own administrations, may have become `weak sisters' (and brothers) in, reading, writing and the ACADEMIC disciplines. Bagley, Kandel and the other FORGOTTEN HEROES knew that well-educated classroom teachers were crucial to the survival and success of the American Republic. FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is truly splendid anthology for specialists or for the general reader. It is not an exaggeration to say FORGOTTEN HEROES is a book that ought to be familiar to every concerned school teacher and wise administrator, every involved parent and thoughtful citizen and every dedicated civic and community leader.

June 22-July 2 2006

J. Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have co-edited a superlative book of the best of those " forgotten heroes " who, many years ago, established the great tradition of teaching teachers. Null and Ravitch have crafted the selected writings of William C. Bagley, Charles De Garmo, William Torrey Harris, Isaac Leon Kandel,Charles Alexander McMurry, William C. Ruediger and Edward Austin Sheldon. If you have never heard of these names, then it is time that educators are exposed to their seminal ideas. If you are familiar with their ideas and conceptions, then this text will reinvigorate and reinforce the importance of their work and theorizing. These authors have a clear, pristine vision of what education could and should be. These authors have crafted their essays into invigorating, stimulating, energizing monuments to the work of pedagogy. In these essays, one is exposed to " marvelous alliteration of the liquid consonants" as well as to " the beauty of their grandeur or the nobility of their underlying thoughts". This book should be read three times- once for the intellectual and historical understanding of their work, once for the stimulating writing style and once to understand the foundations of educational thought and the importance of educational theory and history. In this age of " No Child Left Behind" we need to emphasize the importance of not leaving any " Forgotten Heroes of American Education " behind. Parents whose children are considering the teaching profession may want to present this book to their high school or college offspring to provide them with a foundation and understanding of American education and those who sculpted the basics of American teacher training. This book is a superlative example of "the best of some of America's greatest thinkers as well as teacher trainers". It is hoped that this book will enable educators to keep alive the thoughts of Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart and Froebel in the current educational climate. The profession owes a sincere " thank you " to Null and Ravitch for this impeccably edited, thought provoking text.

This is a very important book for people interested in American education. The book helps us to move beyond the sad complaining that goes on these days when the topic of public education is brought up. Anytime education comes up among my friends, all that anyone does is complain. Our situation is certainly bad, but this book will actually help us to improve things. The heroes, as they call them, that Diane Ravitch and J. Wesley Null have included in the book have some very important things to say to us. They fought against the nonsense that has done so much damage, but they also did more than complain. The book includes some real ideas for helping us to move beyond griping to making things better by giving us more teachers who are well-prepared to teach in today's difficult culture. Read this book, and I say suggest it to your friends, especially if they are in education. Any book that Ravitch is involved with should be taken seriously by people who care about education.

This book has the potential to revolutionize teacher education. Null and Ravitch have put together some very powerful essays that have a lot to teach us about curriculum, teacher education, philosophy, and the history of education. Everyone involved in teacher education must read this book. I am a teacher, and every teacher who cares about our profession also should read this book as well. And the price is reasonable, too--especially for a 650 page book.

This book is intended primarily for serious students of history. It discusses the foundations of historical research--what kinds of questions do historians ask, what constitutes evidence, what makes a source reliable, and the epistomology that underguards historical inquiry. The language is somewhat dense at times and examples are frequently pulled from European history, a not always felicitous choice for students of American history. Still, the reader leaves the book with an arsenal of questions that he can use in tackling his own research questions or in critiquing the work of others. I am still searching for the brief handbook that will provide the amateur historian with a guide towards writing honest, vital, and accurate local histories. To the best of my knowledge, it does not exist.

Finding the right sources for a book, article, paper, or project is much more difficult than it seems. Every subject generally has a large list of material available for use. But in order to generate a significant contribution to this field, historians need to sort out the reliable sources that fit their topic. From Reliable Sources helps this process by producing a "guideline" to finding the best material and how it can be put to use. This book is a useful guide to the various techniques professional historians have devised for analyzing sources. It gets across the point of finding the best sources in order to produce quality historical scholarship.
The critical analysis of a source is the first step to this process. What follows is whether or not the historian believes that the source is reliable. An important message conveyed by the authors is that no source is perfectly reliable. This leads to the limitations faced by historians today, such as change and causality, and how they deal with them. Its significance to historical writing is vital because historians today use different methodologies than their predecessors. Historiography is a daily changing profession where scholars and historians continually struggle with finding the right sources.

History writing is usually considered to have begun with the Greek Herodotus in the 4th century BC with his efforts to distinguish between myth and verifiable stories and that has been the basic problem of writing history ever since. In his history of the Gallic Wars Julius Caesar celebrated the military power of the Romans, along with his own formidable talents as a military leader. Livy fed Roman chauvinism with a history that celebrated eight proud centuries of the Roman past. Thucydides, Polybius, Sallust, Plutarch and Suetonius each brought their own approach or treatment of characters. Augustine portrayed history as an enactment of God's plan. Others wrote accounts to convince readers of the justice of a cause while Guibert of Nogent painted Mohammed in the worst possible light, not caring if the tales were true but only if they helped his case. Matthias Flacius Illyricus's chief purpose was to demonstrate that the Roman Church's claim to be the direct heir of first-century Christianity had no historical basis. Medieval historiography was designed to serve Christianity and in the Middle Ages historians entered the service of lords, monarchs and the state where their primary task was to create glorious pasts, fabricate evidence or select information to give legitimacy to the elite to whom it was offered.

Leopold von Ranke is credited with the founding of the scientific method of history writing but even so he betrays an unclerical ideology and a commitment to the national state so historians must always consider the conditions under which a source was produced, the intentions that motivated it and the reliability of that source. They must also consider the historical context in which it was produced - the events that preceded it, and those that followed, for the significance of any event recorded depends as much on what comes after as it does on what comes before. Had the Boston Tea Party of 1773 not been followed by the American Revolution, it would have had considerably less significance than historians have since given it, and the very same newspaper report of the uprising, in the very same archive, would have had a very different status from the one it actually acquired. Thus, historians are never in a position - and should never imagine themselves being in a position - to read a source without attention to both the historical and the historiographical contexts that give it meaning.

Recording history today has become more complicated because we have such a wealth of information such as television recordings, audiotapes, and videos from the man in the street and not just the written word. This book was written as a guide on how to handle this overload of information and to provide ethical ground rules so that we have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But the deeper underlying significance of this book is something that all of us must reflect on because we receive viewpoints from different sides of a conflict or different political views and we must understand that any report may also have a hidden agenda or bias. We may not have received the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If we then go back in history, our beliefs may be founded on the "truths" handed down to us by the victorious faction and may not truly reflect the real truth. As the authors point out: "It is thus one of the primary responsibilities of the historian to distinguish carefully for readers between information that comes literally out of the source itself (in footnotes or by some other means) and that which is a personal interpretation of the material. For the literal content of a citation - what is transcribed from the source itself - historians have no ethical responsibility; for the meaning they impart to that material, of course, they are entirely responsible."

History used to be a subject that one could view as somewhat ancillary, as an interesting subject but one that was not really needed to function in the modern world. One could dispense with studying history and still maintain a proper perspective of world events. Any inaccuracies in the reporting of world events were the responsibility of reporters, and historians were viewed in general as occupiers of an ivory tower. They were held to be trustworthy because not much weight was assigned to their scholarly activities.

In general, this attitude about history and historians is now considered to be a mistake. Because of some very volatile and dangerous events in the early twenty-first century, the study of history should be viewed now as one of the most important, if not the most important scholarly activity. One can easily observe the enormous weight that is placed on events of the past, due in part to the ideological agendas that are deeply embedded in contemporary politics. And some historians have chosen to use historical analysis to justify a political agenda, or have acted as sycophants for the institutions that host them. It would be fair to say that some historians are now viewed with extreme skepticism, and many are therefore looking into the historical record and seeking answers on their own. These historical auto-didactics are hungry for tools of analysis in which to study and interpret past events.

This short book gives an introduction to these tools, and any reader, whether of the afore-mentioned type or not, will gain a lot from its perusal. It gives much insight into how historians view and find sources, and is primarily written for non-experts (such as this reviewer) in historical analysis. Philosophers and economists will also discover how the study of history also intersects to a large degree with their own fields.

There is a wealth of information in the book, and many questions are answered as well as raised. Some of these include:

1. What is the nature of historical interpretation? Can historians put themselves in a position where an historical source can be read without giving attention to the historical context that give it meaning?
2. How can an historical source be characterized?
3. Are historians ethically responsible for the content of their works, and if so, to what degree?
4. Is there any value in oral records for historical analysis? In interviewing?
5. What impact has information technology had on historical analysis?
6. How are archives useful for the historian, and does a given archive, taken to be reliable, expand or shrink with time?
7. Will the advent of software to analyze historical texts eventually result in the automation of historical analysis?
8. How do historians assess the accuracy or authenticity of sources?
9. Does the interpretation of an historical document always involve the determination of its intended meaning?
10. Should "firsthand" reports of events always be taken as true?
11. How do historians compare different sources relating to the same historical event?
12. The authors refer to `reasoning by interpolation' or `by analogy'. What exactly is the nature of this kind of reasoning?
13. When can a historian claim that his analysis is correct? Is there a way of quantifying the point at which enough evidence has been collected?
14. Can participants in events claim any special insight into these events over and above what can be obtained by an observer (an historian) who is not, or has not, participated in these events?
15. Can historians view events and documents from an apodictic point of view, i.e. free from bias and any implicit assumptions?
16. Should historians focus on what people did in the past rather than what they thought or felt?
17. Should historians concentrate on deducing the motives of the people in history from their visible actions?
18. The authors point to the use of fields such as psychology to study the "feelings in history." Could the relatively new field of cognitive neuroscience be used to do the same, or even more generally to study the motives, decisions, and mental limitations of people in history? One could view this use as a kind of "historical neurocriticism" and its use could possibly shed considerable light on how people, through their cultures, construct meanings of their experiences and make history.
19. The authors refer to human life as being "too complex" to be analyzed with historical models. What notion of complexity is being used here, and given current methods for dealing with complexity in model-building, would these be of any assistance in the study of history, especially those that attempt to understand to what extent events are caused by human actions?
20. Should historians focus more on studies of "popular culture" and not on "learned culture", i.e. should they analyze historical events in terms of what has recently been called "people's history?"
21. What is the difference between a `linear' theory of history and a `cyclical theory', and is the former always more optimistic than the latter?
22. Can technological innovations and development be used as a reference of time for historical change, i.e. as a kind of clock or calendar in which historians are to delineate events? Such a calendar would not necessarily be a linear ordering of events like the ones that are currently used. In periods of rapid technological development, time will be more compressed than in periods of slow technological development. History could thus be viewed as moving more quickly in the former than in the latter.

The trouble with studying history is that it is exceedingly boring in many respects. Unless you are a graduate student of history or just a real history buff, you probably have better ways to spend your time. I like this book a lot, and I only say that because this book is a good, solid introduction to the issue of sources. Oh my goodness, sources. How many biased books are there on every imaginable subject that come to faulty conclusions based on an obvious lack of in-depth research? Anyone can "research" a subject by cherry picking sources and then drawing a conclusion based on someone else's research which is often a compilation of opinions. No one will admit to doing this, but it happens frequently.

What I particularly like about this book is that it approaches history from the standpoint of evaluating sources critically. Certainly history is just a compilation of facts, but how reliable are those facts? No one alive today knew George Washington personally, so how do we really know anything about him? That depends on the nature of the source. We have diaries of first hand accounts. There are letters that he wrote. We know what he looks like based on portraits painted of him. We also know what other people said about him. The problem is that we have to interpret all that information. The key is compiling and evaluating sources. This book addresses many different areas of that and gives various methods for evaluating the credibility of a source. There is a certain amount of critical thinking that goes into such an evaluation and for many people a source is only as credible as the honesty of the person from whom it originated. This usually involves personal attacks and questions about a person's character. This book goes beyond that into other methods of corroborating evidence.

I keep this in my personal library next to other standard books on the subject of researching and writing about history. This book is not about writing history as much as it is an introductory book on researching and evaluating sources. The overall tone of the book is definitely college level. It is probably a bit much for undergraduate history students except for history majors who plan to do a lot of history research. It is definitely suitable for graduate students.

I occasionally refer back to section II (Technical Analysis of Sources) and Section III (Historical Interpretation: The Traditional Basics). Both sections combined are contained in pages 43 through 87 which is not a whole lot of reading. Section II covers a broad range of topics including "Source Criticism: The Great Tradition." I particularly like that part, and I refer back to it on occasion. This subsection covers the analysis of a document from whether the document is an original or a copy down to "The Trustworthiness of the Observer."

Overall, this is an excellent book for the history student, the historian and the history buff. I plan to keep it for the long term for occasional reference whenever I need to brush up on the basics of source criticism and document analysis.

Getting Science Grants provides readers with a complete introduction to the grant writing/submitting process.

It is important to move beyond the perspective of being the salesperson of your research. You need to know the perspective from the other side of the granting process and what will impress your program manager in your proposal.

Thomas Blackburn is an experienced grant writer and as well as having significant experience on the other side as an assitant program administrator. Here he provides researchers with the skinny on finding funding agencies, writing excellent abstracts and proposals, preparing budgets and moving beyond very good to excellent and super proposals.

Buy it, read it and share it with your colleagues!

I found "Getting Science Grants" to be a thoroughly readable, no-nonsense little book that demystifies the grant making process. Blackburn's experience both as a researcher and as one charged with the responsibility of reviewing grant applications shows through. His book provides a step-by-step approach that, if followed, should lead to a higher probability of success and avoid wasted time and frustration occasioned by poorly prepared and submitted applications. Those just entering the sometimes perilous fight for funding will find this book indispensable, and even old hands will find it provides handy reminders of all of the points we think we know by heart, but sometimes forget to apply. This little book is a "must read" for anyone whose professional life depends on getting funding for his or her research. You simply can't afford to ignore it.

Among the relatively few books available that focus on getting science grants, "Getting Science Grants" is unquestionably the very best of the bunch. Blackburn has the perfect mix of credentials (college professor, research scientist, grants officer) to craft this concise treatment of the whole enchilada, from concept development through proposal writing, revision, submission (and resubmission), and grant administration. Giving frank, qualified advice in friendly prose, the author succeeds in creating more than just a "how-to manual" for scientific proposal writing. In roughly a hundred pages, this book shares insight on the science research funding process that would only be acquired by a decade or more of study in the school of hard knocks. As one whose career success is significantly influenced by external funding success, I couldn't recommend Blackburn's book more strongly.

For those of us who indulge ourselves in the pursuit of science, the constant quest for funds to support our habit can occupy more time than any actual "hands on" research. Justifying ones existance to a beaurocratic body, and begging for money is at best embarassing (over here, pick ME, I'm better than all those other tossers who want your cash), and at worst, downright terrifying.
At least, that's how I felt recently as I was faced with the prospect of submitting my first ever grant application. Not only did I struggle to convince myself I had ideas and skills worth selling, I had no idea of how to go about it. Sure the application form gave a vague idea-title, abstract, background-what did they actually want to KNOW? How was I supposed to sound confident and competent without sounding like an egomaniac? How should I present a solid, reasonable proposal without it being deathly boring or promising unachievable breakthroughs?
Finding Thomas Blackburn's "Effective Strategies for Funding Sucess" was a real stroke of luck. It not only answers questions such as these in an entertaining and easily read style, it includes a series of exercises that allow you to give good (and bad) strategies a go BEFORE you face the real thing. It gives a detailed description of what most funding bodies want to find out from each section, a discussion of how these criteria can be met, and descriptions of what differentiates a bad from a good from an exceptional application. It also contains many sensible (but often overlooked) reminders such as "read the abstract again after finishing the detailed proposal section to make sure they agree with one another".
I read the book before starting, and then used it to guide me as I wrote each section, and found that I was much more confident the way I wrote than I would have been otherwise. I also found that I felt better about my own abilities as a scientist, and much less of a fraud, because the final product looked and sounded very professional. I would recommend this book to anybody who is contemplating their first application, or who finds grant writing a harrowing or unsuccessful occupation. I also think that working through the steps outlined in the book could also be used as a self-assessment tool, because having to examine ones own research in terms of funding application is a great way to check the direction and focus of what you are doing right now. I thank Dr Blackburn for providing such a readable, comprehensive and timely guide. I hope it helps many people as much as it helped me.

This book is GREAT!!!! Why do they make us learn all this by trial and error with tenure and support for our graduate students at stake!!! They should be training us in this kind of stuff in graduate school!!!! I now know why my proposals so far have not been very successful, and, better yet, I now know what I can do about it and I actually can hardly wait to get started!

You can tell from what's in the book that it was written by a real funding insider and I learned more about grant writing in the few hours I spent reading it than I have from all my previous proposal-writing efforts and discussions with colleagues and friends to date. I now understand that a successful proposal is not just about the science, as much as all of us would like to think it is. The author makes clear all the elements you really have to take into account, on top of the science, to have the kind of proposal that can compete successfully at places like NSF and NIH. He even demystifies budgets, how to interpret and handle reviews (the good, the bad, AND the ugly), networking with agencies, and what it is that a successful proposal needs to emphasize and where. He even gives you advice on how to find agencies where you have the most success so you can build a strong funding track record quickly. Lots of good insights that I never would have thought of (and I am going to take his advice!).

On top of all the excellent information in this book, like it says above, it is an EXTREMELY easy read. The author has a way of talking about the subject that makes you feel like you are chatting with a friend at the bar who is giving you the inside scoop on everything. I read it in two nights in about an hour or two each night. It doesn't get much better than this! I highly recommend everyone who has to write grants to fund their science to read this book. It will be the best investment in time and money you will ever make!