Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will give a talk next week about writing as a social scientist. The event will be held Nov. 19 at 4 p.m. in Boylston Hall Auditorium, and it is free and open to the community.

This is one in a series of Gordon Gray Faculty Lectures on the Craft of Scholarly Writing. The lectures are part of the Harvard Writing Project, en effort to help faculty develop more effective ways of assigning and responding to student writing.

"I'll talk about dilemmas I have faced in researching, focusing, and writing some of my own books," said Skocpol, whose works include States and Social Revolutions (1979), Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992), and Boomerang: Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics (1996).

"Curiosity and finding something to argue, with passion, are what get me going. I will also talk about why I do historically oriented studies of politics and policy-- a very special brand of political science and sociology."