Book excerpt: Excerpt from Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers In the course of the year I peruse sixty or seventy theses for the degree of M.B. and about twenty-five for the degree of M.D. The matter of these theses is good, it is often excellent; in composition a few are good, but the greater number are written badly, some very ill indeed. The prevailing defect of their composition is not mere inelegance; were it so, it were unworthy of educated men: it is such as to obscure, to perplex, and even to hide or to travesty the sense itself. Thus, for the judge who would be just, many of the theses are very hard reading; and, meritorious as in substance they may be, are, as they stand, unfit for the printer. The use of thesis-writing is to train the mind, or to prove that the mind has been trained; the former purpose is, I trust, promoted, the evidences of the latter are scanty and occasional. Thus, when the Act is kept, we are often forced, against our desire, to dwell on faults of form to some exclusion of the argument. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.