Celia M Elliott

For More Information

• Ms. Particular's Micro-Lectures on Style and Usage

Biography

Celia Elliott is an academic professional with extensive experience in grant and proposal writing and journal publishing. She works closely with the department head and associate heads to develop external and internal resources to allow the department to meet its missions of education, research, and public service, and she works with faculty to increase external funding of their research programs.

In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Celia has been involved with the development of the senior thesis sequence for undergraduate physics majors since its inception in 2000. She is currently team-teaching (with Professor Taylor Hughes) a course on technical communications and research skills, Physics 496. In Spring 2013, she assisted Professor Lance Cooper with a new writing course for graduate students, PHYS 595. Celia has also contributed to the development of programmatic activities for the department's NSF-sponsored "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" program since 1996.

Physics words to live by: Never confuse motion with action--Benjamin Franklin
You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool--Richard Feynman

Research Statement

From 1993 to 2008, Celia assisted former nuclear weapons and bioweapons scientists from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to adapt to their new world, traveling to the FSU 34 times. She has helped them write technical reports and scientific papers in English, prepare proposals for Western funding agencies, and find U.S. collaborators so that they can redirect their research to peaceful civilian applications. She has presented workshops on these topics at Moscow State University, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Moscow), the Science Information Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (Obninsk), the Institute of Metal Physics (Ekaterinburg), the Institute of Chemical Physics (Chernogolovka), the Science and Technology Center (Nizhnyi Novogorod), Tomsk Polytechnical University, Kemerovo State University, the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (Koltosovo), South Ural State University, the State Research Center of Applied Microbiology (Obolensk), the Russian Federal Nuclear Center/Institute of Experimental Physics (Sarov), and the Russian Federal Nuclear Center/Institute of Technical Physics (Snezhinsk).

Supported by the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi, Celia has conducted training workshops on grant-writing and Internet resources for scientists for the Moldovan Research and Development Association, the National Foundation for Science and Technology of Armenia, the Georgian Research and Development Foundation, and the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. She conducted workshops for scientists in Tbilisi, Georgia and Baku, Azerbaijan in June 2003, Odessa, Ukraine in October 2004, and Almaty, Kazakhstan in September 2006.

Celia is the author of two books that have been published in Russian by the International Science and Technology Center, one on preparing grant proposals and one on preparing scientific papers for publication in Western technical journals. Her work in Russia was featured in the November/December 2004 issue of the UI Alumni Association magazine.

Resources for Proposal Writers

• Creating Successful Research Proposals: Tips from the Trenches (an ACS webinar)
• More Tips from the Trenches: Successful Project Summaries (an ACS webinar)
• Writing Winning Proposals: The Heilmeier Catechism (an ACS webinar)
• The Project Summary (an ACS webinar)
• Revising Technical Manuscripts (an ACS webinar)

Resources for Technical Writers and Students

• Ms. Particular's Micro-Lectures on Style and Usage
• Celia's Reddit AMA on Technical Writing
• Celia's Defense of the Passive Voice on Reddit
• A Short Style Guide for Physics Writers
• Celia's FAQ on Tenses
• The Proper Use of Four-Letter Words in Technical Writing
• A Technical Writer's Advice for Physicists
• Persuasion in Technical Communications
• Guidelines for Scientific and Technical Publishing
• Revising Technical Manuscripts
• Style Guide for Writing Numbers in Technical Documents
• Fluff in Scientific Writing
• Effective Science Talks
• PowerPoint Tips for Science Talks
• Hyphens, Dashes, and Minus Signs (more than you ever wanted to know)
• Capitalization and Acronyms in Physics
• Voice and Tense: Making Verbs Work
• Writing Made Easier--The Outline
• Building Good Paragraphs
• Common Latin Terms in Scientific Writing
• Writing an "Acknowledgments" Section
• Reference Rules and Styles in Physics
• Effective Titles
• Effective Abstracts
• Help with English Spelling

Chapters in Books

• "Rosalyn Yalow," Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve Stories from Illinois," eds. Laura D. Hahn and Angela S. Wolters (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 2018), pp. 55-61.
• "Joan Mitchell," Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve Stories from Illinois," eds. Laura D. Hahn and Angela S. Wolters, (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 2018), pp. 43-46.

Selected Articles in Journals

• C.M. Elliott, B.V. Litvinov, Fundamentals of Publishing in Western Technical Journals (VNIITF, Snezhinsk, Russia, 1998). In Russian.
• C.M. Elliott, How to Develop Successful Technical Proposals (ISTC, Moscow, Russia, 2000). In Russian.
• C.M. Elliott, How to Develop Successful Technical Proposals (MRDA, Chisinau, Moldova, 2001). In Romanian.
• John R. Gallagher, Nicole Turnipseed, John Y. Yoritomo, Celia M. Elliott, S. Lance Cooper, John Popovics, Paul Prior, and Julie Zilles, "A Collaborative Longitudinal Design for Supporting Writing Pedagogies of STEM Faculty," Technical Communication Quarterly (2020).

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• *B. Kovanen, R. Ware, M. Mericle, N. Turnipseed, J.P. Coleman, C.M. Elliott, S.L. Cooper, P. Prior, J.L. Zilles, "Implementing writing-as-process in engineering education," ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference ProceedingsVolume 2020-June22 June 2020 Article number 8292020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, June 22-26, 2020.
• *R. Ware, M.E. Mericle, P. Prior, J.R. Gallagher, J.S. Popovics, S.L. Cooper, C.M. Elliott, J.L. Zilles, "Promoting pedagogical change around writing: Observations of discursive turbulence," 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 26-29, 2022.
• *Ware, R., Turnipseed, N., Gallagher, J.R., Elliott, C.M., Popovics, J.S., Prior, P., Zilles, J.L., "Writing across engineering: A collaborative approach to support STEM faculty's integration of writing instruction in their classes," 126th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Tampa, Florida, 15 June 2019 through 19 June 2019; Code 157034.
• *J.Y. Yoritomo, N. Turnipseed, S.L. Cooper, C.M. Elliott, J.R. Gallagher, J.S. Popovics, P. Prior, and J.L. Zilles, "Examining engineering writing instruction at a large research university through the lens of writing studies," ASEE 125th Annual Conference & Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 24-27, 2018, paper ID #22453
• *M.U. Zahid, E.S. Groundwater, Y. Li, C.M. Elliott, A.M. Smith, D.R. Trinkle, K. Ritter, P.S. Carney, M. Pool, and K. Jensen, "Work in Progress: Design of a First-Year Rhetoric Course for Engineering Students," ASEE 124th Conf. & Exhibition, Columbus, Ohio, June 25-28, 2017, paper ID #19835.