Science writing
Unfort my initial post has been lost by the otherwise good folks at blogger. So to partly reconstruct: I was in the shower last Thurs morning (Dec 2), thinking about doing some science-related posts to Steady Blogging. I'd already put a couple science-related posts up there. (See this one about Flores man, and this one about RNAi.) And I'd been planning to do some more in-depth science posts, particularly on stem cells, given their rather sudden and growing importance in the political arena.
It struck me then to set up a separate blog devoted to science posts--this is it. My original plan was to name it "Dropping Science", but that droppingscience.blogspot.com has already been claimed. That was initially disappointing, but after brainstorming for a bit, I came up with the current title, which I rather prefer now. In a later post I'll go into from where I lifted the phrase "Super Scientifical."
But after realizing I should set up a blog to do some more serious science writing, I realized I should start thinking about getting serious about being a science writer. I've been thinking about getting serious about writing off and on for a while, but I've never set aside the time to do it, nor have I had a good idea of what I'd write about. Science and mathematics seem like the natural places to start. Mathematics is what I spent the better part of 10 years of my life learning, and for the past 3 years I've been learning some biology. But I'm a generalist by inclination, and so my interests in mathematics and science tend to be wide and relatively shallow, rather than narrow and deep as a research career seems to demand. (I don't claim to have read or understood Berlin's dichotomy, but it sounds like I'm more a fox than a hedgehog.) Indeed, my strengths as a scientist are primarily in synthesizing and communicating information. So it seems as if my eduction, skills, and interests could lend themselves to expository writing about science. All of that, combined with a growing need for good expository science writing--particularly science writing that is informed by, and can inform, public policy--is what's motivating me to make a go of this.
I started this post with the idea of just archiving a few science writing links. Here they are:
It struck me then to set up a separate blog devoted to science posts--this is it. My original plan was to name it "Dropping Science", but that droppingscience.blogspot.com has already been claimed. That was initially disappointing, but after brainstorming for a bit, I came up with the current title, which I rather prefer now. In a later post I'll go into from where I lifted the phrase "Super Scientifical."
But after realizing I should set up a blog to do some more serious science writing, I realized I should start thinking about getting serious about being a science writer. I've been thinking about getting serious about writing off and on for a while, but I've never set aside the time to do it, nor have I had a good idea of what I'd write about. Science and mathematics seem like the natural places to start. Mathematics is what I spent the better part of 10 years of my life learning, and for the past 3 years I've been learning some biology. But I'm a generalist by inclination, and so my interests in mathematics and science tend to be wide and relatively shallow, rather than narrow and deep as a research career seems to demand. (I don't claim to have read or understood Berlin's dichotomy, but it sounds like I'm more a fox than a hedgehog.) Indeed, my strengths as a scientist are primarily in synthesizing and communicating information. So it seems as if my eduction, skills, and interests could lend themselves to expository writing about science. All of that, combined with a growing need for good expository science writing--particularly science writing that is informed by, and can inform, public policy--is what's motivating me to make a go of this.
I started this post with the idea of just archiving a few science writing links. Here they are:
- National Association of Science Writers (and specifically their
Advice for Beginning Science Writers) - UC Santa Cruz Science Writing
- Northern California Science Writers Association (NCSWA)
- CASW-Council for the Advancement of Science Writing
- A Field Guide for Science Writers
- From Science's NextWave: Field Report 3: Everything You Wanted to Know About Becoming a Science Writer But Were Afraid to Ask
posted by Suman at 1:32 PM
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