Rodolfo J. Romañach, from the Department of Chemistry-UPRM will be offering a lecture titled “Clear Thinking Becomes Clear Writing”
Date: April 24, 2014
Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Place: INQU 004 – Amphitheater
Abstract:
“Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other. It’s impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.”1 These words helped me realize that the problems that we see in scientific writing are not solely because English is our second language. Writing requires craftsmanship such as an adequate vocabulary, knowledge of how to use verbs, and the use of active or passive sentences. However, writing goes beyond the craft and requires a creative process. The creative process advances thinking. Thus, when a graduate student or professor decides to write later, unfortunately they are also postponing their thinking.
During the past few months, William Zinsser ‘s book; “On Writing Well”, has helped me reflect about my past experiences in writing and coaching students in their writing. The book has helped me see what I have done correctly and my mistakes. I will describe Zinsser’s approach and link it to my experiences in working with research proposals, theses, and research manuscripts.
Biosketch:
Dr. Romañach is currently Professor of Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez Campus. He worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 12 years before joining the Chemistry Department in 1999. His research has produced over 30 publications and involves near infrared and Raman spectroscopy, and multivariate methods to assure that Quality Assurance is not an additional cost of manufacturing, but a means for continuous improvement in manufacturing, and an element to increase manufacturing competitiveness. He was awarded an NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award to expand his research with the acquisition of a Near Infrared Chemical Imaging system. He has played a leading role in making the PAT and Quality by Design (QbD) known with 10 publications describing these initiatives and by organizing the IFPAC Summer Summit on PAT and Quality by Design for the past 9 years and through participation in a number of meetings and continuing education activities attended by industry personnel. Dr. Romañach is also Adjunct Professor of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy at Purdue University, leads the Sensing project in the NSF Engineering Center for Structured Organic Particulate Systems (http://www.ercforsops.rutgers.edu/), is currently organizing the 2014 International Diffuse Reflectance Conference in Chambersburg, PA.