A01=Beth Luey
academic writing for general audiences
accessibility in educational publishing
accessible nonfiction literature
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
archival studies of publishing
author-reader interaction
Author_Beth Luey
automatic-update
bridging academia and public discourse
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSB
Category=JBCC1
Category=JFCA
communication of scientific concepts
comparative analysis of genr
comparative reading experiences
COP=United States
cultural impact of nonfiction
curricular reform and readership
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dissemination of historical knowledge
editorial correspondence analysis
editorial decision-making in publishing
engaging the lay audience
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
evolution of nonfiction genres
evolution of scholarly authority
historical development of nonfiction audiences
historical trends in intellectual popularization
history of knowledge dissemination
impact of the Web on reading habits
influence of editors and publishers
influential nonfiction authors
interdisciplinary popularization
Language_English
literacy and education history
literary mediation of academic research
literary popularization
marketing strategies for serious books
motivations for writing popular books
nonfiction and cultural literacy
nonfiction in the digital era
nonfiction reading habits
PA=To order
popular science writing
popularity of scientific ideas
postwar literary trends
Price_€20 to €50
professionalization of academic authors
PS=Active
public engagement with scholarship
reader evaluations of nonfiction
rhetorical techniques in nonfiction
role of nonfiction in shaping public opinion
science communication strategies
softlaunch
strategies for reaching mass audiences
surveys of nonfiction readership
understanding complex ideas
Product details
- ISBN 9781558498174
- Weight: 393g
- Dimensions: 153 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 06 May 2010
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This is a lively exploration of how non-fiction books have kept Americans learning long after leaving college. Over the past fifty years, knowledge of the natural world, history, and human behavior has expanded dramatically. What has been learned in the academy has become part of political discourse, sermons, and everyday conversation. The dominant medium for transferring knowledge from universities to the public is popularization - books of serious non-fiction that make complex ideas and information accessible to nonexperts. Such writers as Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Daniel Boorstin, and Robert Coles have attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. As fields such as biology, physics, history, and psychology have changed the ways we view ourselves and our place in the universe, popularization has played an essential role in helping us to understand our world. ""Expanding the American Mind"" begins by comparing fiction and non-fiction - their relative respectability in the eyes of reading experts and in the opinions of readers themselves. It then traces the roots of popularization from the Middle Ages to the present, examining changes in literacy, education, and university politics. Focusing on the period since World War-II, it examines the ways that curricular reform has increased interest in popularization as well as the impact of specialization and professionalization among the faculty. It looks at the motivations of academic authors and the risks and rewards that come from writing for a popular audience. It also explains how experts write for nonexperts - the rhetorical devices they use and the voices in which they communicate. Beth Luey also looks at the readers of popularizations - their motivations for reading, the ways they evaluate non-fiction, and how they choose what to read. This is the first book to use surveys and online reader responses to study nonfiction reading. It also compares the experience of reading serious non-fiction with that of reading other genres. Using publishers' archives and editor-author correspondence, Luey goes on to examine what editors, designers, and marketers in this very competitive business do to create and sell popularizations to the largest audience possible. In a brief after-word she discusses popularization and the web. The result is a highly readable and engaging survey of this distinctive genre of writing.
BETH LUEY is author of Handbook for Academic Authors, now in its fifth edition, and editor of Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors. For more than twenty-five years, she directed the Scholarly Publishing Program at Arizona State University.
