Converting Science News for the Web

With the Internet emerging as a primary newsgathering source, many traditional media outlets have converted their products for online viewing. This paper explores how two science news magazines, New Scientist and Science News, have approached this challenge. Elements of hyptertext theory are also included.

Carsten, Laura D. EServer (2001). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Scientific Communication

Expand Your Income by Writing for Magazines  

Technical writers are well-equipped to write how-to articles for magazines. There are many markets for informational articles, and by creating a well-crafted query, a competent technical writer can get an assignment. This work is ideal for generating part-time income and it provides a more creative outlet for writers.. Getting ideas for good articles is as simple as following oneâ*™s own interests. Writing for magazines can become a lucrative â*œsecondâ** career for technical writers.

Agnew, Beth. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing

The Idea is the Message  

Scientific communication differs from technical communication in several ways. One is that scientific communicators work with ideas rather than with a product. They present data and the inferences and conclusions drawn from those data. The information or the idea is the message. Scientific editors facilitate the transfer of knowledge from authors to readers.

Burgan, Murrie W. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing

Issues in Medical Writing

In this country several factors influence the medical writing of medical professionals, professionals in a field that prides itself on combining art with science. The fairly exclusive culture of the medical professional, the power and highly competitive nature of publishing within that discourse community, and the need for accurate, reliable information for immediate use in solving problems, and a strong inclination to put medical 'facts' first and communication of those facts second create interesting dynamics and rhetorical complexities in medical writing.

Taaffe, Maura. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Writing

Knowledge Portal as a New Paradigm for Scientific Publishing and Collaboration

This paper addresses the newly emerging paradigm of scientific knowledge dissemination and collaboration. The paper is based on the particular area of knowledge collaboration in the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Facilities Management (AEC/FM) industry, including knowledge sharing and technology transfer in the area of environmentally friendly concrete materials. The research and scientific community is moving away from the old “information spread” model for dissemination of scientific information, where knowledge is channelled through paper-based refereed academic journals and conference proceedings. Researchers are becoming involved in publishing their articles in online-refereed journals that provide free or low fee access to scientific information. In this paper the authors propose some general architecture and design guidelines for online, collaborative research environments (Knowledge Portals) in the AEC/FM industry. These virtual, collaborative spaces are becoming an essential part of the modern scientific publishing and knowledge transfer processes within professional communities of practice. The proposed model of the Knowledge Portal for the AEC/FM industry could also serve as a generic model in designing virtual research collaborative environments for other areas of knowledge sharing and collaboration. The paper describes existing technological solutions, adapted by online communities of practice, for maintaining corporate knowledge portals, scientific publishing and knowledge exchange spaces and proposes generic architecture and design principles for a generic Knowledge Portal. As an essential part of the Knowledge Portal, and a sample case study of knowledge dissemination, the paper describes existing stand-alone and Web-based digital collections of research data in the area of environmentally friendly concrete.

Martens, B. and W. Jabi. ITcon (2004). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication

Mathematical Writing  

Issues of technical writing and the effective presentation of mathematics and computer science. Preparation of theses, papers, books, and 'literate' computer programs.

Knuth, Donald E., Tracy Larrabee and Paul M. Roberts. Stanford University (1987). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication>Mathematics

Medical Technical Writing  

In a multibillion-dollar-per-yearcindustry, medical technical writers are well situated between companies that manufacture drugs and medical equipment and the federal government, which regulates the manufacture of drugs and medical equipment. The government requires that these companies produce specific types of documents, which must be of a very high standard. This situation creates lucrative opportunities for technical writers.

English, Wayne A. Intercom (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Technical Writing

Nuclear Information: One Rhetorical Moment in the Construction of the Information Age  

Since the late 1970's we have been said to be living in the information age, and that name has stuck, with the phrase increasingly appearing throughout the closing decades of the millennium. The slogan, like all slogans, attempts to assert unity in the face of complexity; nonetheless, it captures, better than most such slogans, a dominant theme of almost all aspects of our everyday life. The slogan has its visual icons in advertising and journalism: binary bits flashing down wires and across the sky, tied to no location and independent of the humans who may need or use that information. Information has become an abstract universal, like atoms and electrons, to create or serve any entity, in no particular configuration, serving no particular purpose, gathered and used by no particular people (but of course provided or facilitated by specific companies who make this information their business). Information, however, is a human creation for human purposes, even if our devices now produce terrabytes of signals that travel only to other devices, never to be seen or touched by humans. This essay recovers a small piece of the history by which we constructed our understandings and uses of information, so that information has become pervasive in everyday life, needs, and action. It considers how information came to have major governmental and military meanings to the U.S. public during World War Two and after, and how an anti-nuclear test activist group asserted an alternative understanding of information to foster public opposition to government policy. This rhetorical reconstruction of information advanced a culture of citizen information, validated by citizen scientists to serve the needs and concerns of citizens, which pervaded the anti-war, environmental, and consumer movements that became our everyday reality in the second half of the century. Such citizen information embodies multiple assumptions about threats to everyday life, the necessity of reliable and up-to-date information for action to oppose the threats, large institutions whose interests are served by the threatening situation and which limit access to relevant information, science as an independent and objective source of information, and the responsibilities of a citizen to be informed.

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB. Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing>Rhetoric

Signs of Intelligible Life  

Looks at a number of institutions that are finding ways to insert plain English into communication between scientists and the public, as well as among scientists of different disciplines.

Whiteman, Lily. Science (2000). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication>Minimalism

Teaching Science Writing  

Teaching students how to write about science for the general public involves helping them research subjects, publications, and audiences. They should learn about research, organization of articles, audience analysis, and writing strategies, and use human interest, background information and examples, proper terminology and pace, and techniques to motivate readers to read the article.

Samson, Donald C., Jr. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Education>Writing>Scientific Communication

Technical Writing vs. Science Communication: What is the Difference, and Why Should We Care?  

Many technical writer/editors at Los Alamos National Laboratory feel that we (and our colleagues at other institutions) do a good job of helping scientists communicate with each other, but we do not do so well in communicating with the general public. We have done a literature search and interviewed target audience members to learn how to better communicate science. Our research falls into the four following areas: the need for this special knowledge, characterization of audiences, communications strategies, and evaluation of the resulting communication products.

Garnett, Anne E., Amy Marie Longshore, Ann Mauzy and Amy Reeves. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing>Technical Writing

Training Scientists to be Journalists

Successful applicants show us they can invest their hearts as well as their minds into their writing. They tell us stories that live in our minds long after we read their words.

Wilkes, John. EMBO Reports (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing

A Virtual Conversation on Bernadette Longo's Spurious Coin: A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing    

A collection of responses to Bernadette Longo's Spurious Coin.

Gaskill, David, Mary Been, Margaret N. Hundleby and Pete Praetorius. Journal of Computer Documentation (2001). Articles>Management>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing

Wanted: Articulate Scientists  

This article outlines the benefits you can realize by articulating your science clearly and succinctly; next time, we'll look at how and why several academic and government institutions as well as some publications are encouraging this trend.

Whiteman, Lily. Science (2000). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication>Minimalism

Why Should You Really Care and the Other W’s of Science Writing  

The secret to attracting readers from a public increasingly noted for its scientific illiteracy is to hook them. How? By appealing to their real-life concerns, need for stimulating visual images and interesting stories, and sense of humor. Application, not abstractions, are emphasized in effective science writing.

Krause, Carolyn H. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication

Writing About Science for General Audiences  

Writing about science for general audiences has its challenges. But by defining your audience (general is rarely general), balancing technical reviews (what the audience wants versus what the scientist thinks they should know), and providing graphics that explain complex concepts to a scientifically unsophisticated audience, you'll do fine.

Miller, Barbara J. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication

Writing for the Third Millennium  

The Third Millennium will require writers to help society cope with rapid technological change. Writers frame experience and communicate it to others in way that allows them to better understand complex ideas and make them part of their own experience. More than ever, technical writers are needed to help society understand the rapid changes taking place. Technology is merging disciplines into multimedia, compressing information into a more compact space.

Agnew, Beth. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication

Writing to Learn in Mathematics    

The majority of people, mathematicians included, think that writing out formulas is exactly what we call writing in mathematics. I was guilty of the same preconceptions before I started to work with the Writing Across the Curriculum Project at Medgar Evers College. The definition of writing to learn that we use at MEC helped me come up with the idea that served as the basic principle for my further experiments and conclusions as I implemented writing to learn in mathematics.

Flesher, Tatyana. WAC Journal, The (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing Across the Curriculum

Procedural Explanations in Mathematics Writing: A Framework for Understanding College Students' Effective Communication Practices    

This study analyzes the procedural explanations written by remedial college mathematics students. Relevant literatures suggest that six communication activities might be key in effective procedural explanations in mathematics writing: (a) orienting the learner, (b) providing kernels or definitions of concepts and procedures, (c) using exemplars or worked examples, (d) providing descriptions of the process or procedure, (e) solidifying learner understanding, and (f) facilitating linguistic control of mathematical terms. Using this framework, 18 practices or types of difficulties were discovered in students' written explanations. Independent experts consistently evaluated student explanations more highly when the explanations contained arithmetic or algebraic exemplars, described specific actions and their meanings, linked new with prior knowledge, and used descriptive language; experts evaluated student explanations more negatively when students displayed difficulties reasoning with kernels, reasoning with exemplars, or with describing processes.

Kline, Susan L. and Drew K. Ishii. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Writing>Scientific Communication>Mathematics

An Ergonomic Format for Short Reporting in Scientific Journals Using Nested Tables and the Deming's Cycle    

The typical structure of a scientific report involves highly standardized sections. The key concept of a scientific report is the reproducibility of results. Because not only clarity but also conciseness is a tool for the advancement of science, a new format using nested tables is proposed with the aim of improving the design of short reports in scientific journals, namely short communications, short technical reports, case reports, etc. This format is based on the ergonomic philosophy of visual encyclopaedias (one topic, one page) and on the quality system of the Deming's cycle (plan--do--check--act) for continuous improvement. This new editing tool has several advantages over existing forms, because it provides quick and ergonomic, reader-friendly research reports that, at the same time, would render a saving in terms of available space and publishing costs of the printed version of scientific journals.

Hortol, Policarp. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Scientific Communication>Research>Technical Writing

Writing Like a Doctor

The mere act of reading good books, if you are not stopping to scrutinize the moves and tools used by the writers, examining and dissecting the choices they have made and why they work, will do nothing for you when you sit down to write. If you want a journal to accept your paper, or a federal agency to grant you coin, you have to make clear what is at stake and why the reader should care. Then you have to put forward the strongest reasoning based on evidence you provide in the clearest language you are able to rally. And then you need to know when you need help.

Toor, Rachel. Chronicle of Higher Education (2009). Articles>Education>Writing>Scientific Communication

How Do People at FDA Read Documents On-Screen?

With the substantial move to submitting electronic documents versus paper documents to FDA, it is useful to pause and consider how a regulatory reviewer actually reads a large complex technical document on screen.

Cuppan, Gregory P. Brainery.net (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Regulatory Writing>Biomedical

What Reviewers Need to Know About the Regulatory Reader, Continued

One of the big problems in document review is that reviewers often fail to recognize that their principal job as a reviewer is to act as a surrogate for the document end-user, in this case the regulatory reader. In this article, we offer a characterization of the reading style of the regulatory reader which is useful to keep in mind when reviewing any document or group of documents to be submitted to pharmaceutical and medical device regulatory agencies.

Cuppan, Gregory P. Brainery.net (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Regulatory Writing