Life Musings

So I checked out this library book, Biotechnology 101 by Brian Robert Schmaefsky. I cannot recommend it.

I'm sure that the content itself is decent; however, the writing style is truly atrocious. It reads like the writings of an academic who has a lot of knowledge to commit to paper, but who hasn't spent enough time organizing his thoughts in a coherent fashion. What's more, his prose is positively clunky. Here's an example:

"Peptides are often referred to as the building materials of living cells. Their elemental chemistry consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen like the carbohydrates and lipids. However, they also contain nitrogen and sulfur."

Ugh! Talk about clunky!

He goes on (without a suitable paragraph break) to say,

"Proteins are the most common type of peptides found in living organisms. These molecules are often very large and are made up of hundreds to thousands of monomers called amino acids. Amino acids are a large class of nitrogen-containing organic molecules that readily form polymers using a special covalent bond called the peptide bond."

That was somewhat better, but still awkwardly phrased.

Some might ask whether he was writing for children, and whether this would explain his writing style. Based on the content of the book, I don't think that was the case, nor was there any label on the book, indicating that it was for a juvenile audience. Rather, I think that the book would have simply benefited from having a good technical editor.