Book review of "The Essential Engineer," by Henry Petroski

By Thomas Hayden
Sunday, February 28, 2010

THE ESSENTIAL ENGINEER

Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems

By Henry Petroski


The Literature Review I read was about a book called “The Essential Engineer” written by Henry Petroski. The Literature Review was written by a man named Thomas Hayden. Reading this review was definitely a new experience for me. I have never read anything like it before, and it really did the job of convincing me that I want to read the original text. Hayden starts off by proposing an idea, and then by using the book as evidence he cites ideas from the book to back up the original point. He does this for several key points and I think it’s really effective the way he does it. I find it interesting how he offers his own insight in support of the books argument, and even though it is completely based off of his own opinion it still offers so much to the review. I think this is the idea of presenting an idea, then backing it up with evidence. In this case, Hayden gets the ideas from the original text, and then by using facts in the book he uses that as evidence to support his idea. I learned about this style of writing in my HIST 100 class, strangely enough. She is really focused on expanding out literary and research skills and less concerned about memorizing dates of battles events which is really cool. I think writing a literature review would be a great way to support my argument for my research paper. It would provide insight, and reputable evidence that would add a life of its own to my argument. It’s also a way to provide just the portions you need of a text, without having to summarize and re-state the entire paper.