> The way he writes makes even interesting topics feel deadly boring.
This sounds like a great endorsement to me. Another complaint I had about Zinsser's book was that he was giving you advice on how to "spice up" your writing, but IIRC (it's been some years), it was all about standard journalistic tricks to construct a narrative, have distinct characters and personalize the story. Obviously that sort of thing is more engaging to read, but I feel like it often distorts the "take-away" message of most scientific and technical writing, given that most science is incremental improvements on existing technology carried out by international collaborations and competitions, not major breakthroughs carried out by lone supermen.
> it was all about standard journalistic tricks to construct a narrative, have distinct characters and personalize the story. Obviously that sort of thing is more engaging to read
That sort of writing doesn't engage me at all. Too many articles begin with something "it was a foggy afternoon as Peter was waiting in line to buy ice cream", taking 5 paragraphs to first touch on the subject mentioned in the title, instead of just coming out with "Scientists recently confirmed that yum yum molecules can generate distinctive taste sensations depending on the amount and color temperature of the light they have been exposed to in the first few hours. This odd discovery began when scientist guy was hoping to grab some cones at his favourite ice cream Parlour in $city, etc. blah blah".
As you can tell, I'm not a writer. But I know the kind of writing I won't waste my time on, and the internet is full of.
This sounds like a great endorsement to me. Another complaint I had about Zinsser's book was that he was giving you advice on how to "spice up" your writing, but IIRC (it's been some years), it was all about standard journalistic tricks to construct a narrative, have distinct characters and personalize the story. Obviously that sort of thing is more engaging to read, but I feel like it often distorts the "take-away" message of most scientific and technical writing, given that most science is incremental improvements on existing technology carried out by international collaborations and competitions, not major breakthroughs carried out by lone supermen.