#29418
Don't be a Researcher: Be a Finder!
One of the fascinating things about science is just how many breakthroughs have come from mixing the knowledge provided by entirely different disciplines, and I suspect that this lesson has yet to be learned in our own discipline of scientific communication. Technical writers have been grappling with the issues of rhetoric, audience analysis, and usability testing for years, and have developed effective solutions and techniques for addressing these issues. Scientific communicators have largely ignored these breakthroughs and clung to our familiar models of communication.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1998). Articles>Scientific Communication
#29532
Drawing to Learn Science: Legacies of Agassiz 
The use of visual representation to learn science can be traced to Louis Agassiz, Harvard Professor of Zoology, in the mid-19th century. In Agassiz's approach, students were to study nature through carefully observing, drawing and then thinking about what the observations might add up to. However, implementation of Agassiz's student-centered approach has struggled with the conflict between science as a form of developing "mental discipline" in which mastery of scientific facts is the goal and science learning as a socially situated activity with an emphasis on the process of learning, not merely its products. Present-day attempts to have students draw to learn science often succumb to these same conflicts, limiting their full realization.
Lerner, Neal. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Illustration>History
#22624
Drug Information Association: XML Resources for Life Sciences Pro
The Drug Information Association (DIA) has compiled a series of useful articles designed to help you understand XML and related technologies. Don't worry! You don't have to be an IT guru to understand XML. The resources provided are written in laymen's terms and geared towards life sciences professionals, but may prove beneficial to professionals in other industries and vertical markets.
Rockley, Ann. Rockley Group, The (2004). Articles>Content Management>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#20190
Editing mathematics is like editing a foreign language, with its own conventions, symbols, and rules of grammar. Various typographic rules must be followed exactly since deviations from them change the meaning of the material. Like poetry, placement of the information on the page is important for the meaning. The editor often must be a cryptographer, decoding esoteric handwritten material.
Burgan, Murrie W. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Editing>Mathematics
#29425
The Editor as Translator (or: How Do You Say That in Calculus?)
Sometimes English just isn't the most elegant way to say something. It might be so much easier if we write for a math journal, because the correct language for the explanation can be, in fact, mathematics.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1999). Articles>Editing>Scientific Communication>Mathematics
#18410
An essential aspect of any research project is dissemination of the findings arising from the study. The most common ways to make others aware of your work is by publishing the results in a journal article, or by giving an oral or poster presentation (often at a regional or national meeting). While efforts are made to teach the elements of writing a journal article in many graduate school curricula, much less attention is paid to teaching those skills necessary to develop a good oral or poster presentation - even though these arguably are the most common and most rapid ways to disseminate new findings. In addition, the skills needed to prepare an oral presentation can be used in a variety of other settings - such as preparing a seminar in graduate school, organizing a dissertaton defense, conducting a job interview seminar, or even addressing potential philanthropic sources!
University of Kansas. Articles>Presentations>Rhetoric>Scientific Communication
#14126
Effects of Technical Editing in Biomedical Journals: A Systematic Review
The 11 studies on technical editing indicate that it improves the readability of articles slightly (as measured by Gunning Fog and Flesch reading ease scores), may improve other aspects of their quality, can increase the accuracy of references and quotations, and raises the quality of abstracts. Supplying authors with abstract preparation instructions had no discernible effect.
Wager, Elizabeth and Philippa Middleton. JAMA (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication>Assessment
#10688
Electronic Publishing of Scientific Manuscripts
To write a chapter about a topic which is so new and developing so rapidly that changes take place just about everyday is an interesting challenge. What I hope to accomplish in these few pages is to explain what electronic publishing is and explore a number of issues associated with this new area of information dissemination. Yes!, this is a new area of dissemination! And perhaps this is the place to start - by defining electronic publishing. Electronic publishing is a new form of communication. Electronic publishing, for the purposes of scholarly scientific presentation of results, is the creation of a scholarly work which is in a totally electronic (non-paper) form from its creation to its publication or dissemination. An electronic journal is a product that was specifically developed and designed for the Internet, a product which is not re-worked printed material that is delivered electronically. As I hope to show in this chapter, electronic journals and electronic publishing is much more than an alternat
Heller, Stephen R. hellers.com. Articles>Scientific Communication>Information Design
#23227
A report on the STC (Scientific, Technical and Medical) publishing enterprise as it exists today.
National Academies Press (2004). Books>Publishing>Scientific Communication>Technical Writing
#25486
The Emergence of a Root Metaphor in Modern Physics: Max Planck's 'Quantum' Metaphor
The two purposes of this article are: 1) to use metaphorical analysis to determine whether or not Max Planck invented the quantum postulate and 2) to demonstrate how metaphorical analysis can be used to analyze the rhetoric of revolutionary texts in science. Metaphors often serve as the basis of invention for scientific theories. When we identify these metaphors in Planck's original 1900 quantum paper, it is clear that Planck did consider the quantum postulate to be important. However, we also see that he does not consider the quantum postulate to be revolutionary. A New Scientific Truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Johnson-Sheehan, Richard D. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1997). Articles>Scientific Communication>History>Tropes
#29200
Emergent Genres in Young Disciplines: The Case of Ethnological Science
Although the rhetoric of relatively stable scientific disciplines has been studied extensively, less attention has been paid to discourse formation in young disciplines. The author extends recent theories of genre and disciplinary discourse in a close rhetorical analysis of early papers in ethnological science. Practitioners apply extant rhetorical resources to new disciplinary problems as they learn to identify themselves as participants in a collective project. The young discipline 'learns' its discourse from its practitioners.
Henze, Brent R. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Research>Scientific Communication>Ethnicity
#21004
The quality of consumer health information on the World Wide Web is an important issue for medicine, but to date no systematic and comprehensive synthesis of the methods and evidence has been performed.
Eysenbach, Gunther, John Powell, Oliver Kuss and Eun-Ryoung Sa. JAMA (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Online
#19381
I wanted to be a science writer for the same reason that many of you probably wanted to be scientists. For my generation, at least in our youth, truth and beauty were as one. I dabbled in poetry and paleontology, astronomy and architecture. I finally chose writing because it gave me art and science as well. I'd never heard the phrase 'science writer' but science was always my subject. When I went into daily newspapering I told my editor I wanted to be a science writer. He grunted and said the paper didn't need one of those. But history was against him, and the young kid he'd hired had a talent for finding science in any story he was assigned. Early on I turned a story about the city's rat eradication program into a piece that could have blended seamlessly with Zinsser's Rats, Lice and History. In my hands a zoning story metamorphosed into a piece on urban demographics. A school bond issue assignment came back to my editor in the form of an un-rejectable profile of a chemistry teacher. The editors grumbled but the readers loved it – and soon everyone outside the paper referred to me as a 'science writer.' I will never forget the great victory it was, the first time my boss called me that.
Franklin, Jon. NASW (1997). Articles>Scientific Communication
#13287
Each of us has some opportunity to make the environment part of our consideration when designing technical communication. The environment is not something “out there” beyond our concern or our ability to respond. Rather it is a part of our everyday life and can be a part of our everyday decision making process. This paper explores how environmental considerations can and should be a part of design matters in technical communication. The paper elaborates a set of environmental guidelines that can be used by professionals working in the field and made a part of technical communication teaching. Even small changes can make a difference. Environmental design matters!
Gordon, Myra. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Scientific Communication>Environmental
#22014
Review: Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image
As an accomplished photographer of science and engineering research, Felice Frankel knows how to capture her readers' attention—her exquisite images in Envisioning science communicate their amazing power, by her design, and ultimately 'teach us to see' science in a different way. We are witnesses to the excitement of discovery represented in such images as cadmium selenide nanocrystals, self-assembled polyhedra, yeast colonies, and mouse embryo lungs, thereby illustrating the book's educational value.
Winn, Wendy. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>Graphic Design>Scientific Communication
#14018
Escrever Um Artigo Científico: Das Partes Para O Todo
Apresentam-se, de forma sintética, os principais cuidados a ter na escrita de um artigo científico. Para esse efeito, descrevem-se e comentam-se, sequencialmente, as sucessivas componentes de um documento desta natureza. Pensa-se que esta abordagem constituirá um bom auxiliar para os autores que pretendam reforçar a coerência e adequação dos seus artigos científicos.
Dias de Figueiredo, Antonio. Universidade de Coimbra (1998). (Portuguese) Articles>Scientific Communication>Regional>Portugal
#14007
El objetivo de una comunicación técnica no divulgativa es transmitir ideas, información o descubrimientos de carácter técnico o científico dentro de un entorno homogéneo (interacción entre miembros de una misma comunidad, por ejemplo, la comunidad académica de profesores y alumnos). Incluye elementos tales como: Preguntas o dudas sobre una materia concreta a una autoridad competente. Por ejemplo: un mensaje de correo electrónico enviado a un profesor para consultar una duda sobre la organización del laboratorio o sobre una práctica; Informes sobre el análisis, diseño, implementación o pruebas de un determinado sistema o de un módulo de un sistema. Dentro de este apartado podemos incluir la memoria final de la práctica de laboratorios como el LSED o el LCEL; Informes sobre mediciones de laboratorio incluyendo su discusión. Forman parte de la memoria de LSED o LCEL.
Martinez, Juan Manuel Montero. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (2001). (Spanish) Books>Scientific Communication>TC
#23688
Essential Pharmaceutical URLs and Organizations
Systems and network engineers, developers, project managers, and technical staff have been hit hard since the technology bubble burst. Since Y2K there has been an influx of competitive workers on H1B visas who have stayed and now have green cards. Now there is also outsourcing to India, Bulgaria, Russia, Ireland, the Philippines etc.
Marie, Cecile. MetroVoice (2003). Careers>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#14936
Eureka! The Importance of Good Science Writing 
Today, society is large and scientific experiments across the world are carried out by people who are usually hidden from public view. So much of what scientists do affects our daily lives, yet most people remain largely unaware of how scientists use their (mostly public) funding, and how their work affects them. Good science writing helps us understand what scientists around the world are up to.
Holland, Anton. Writer's Block (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication
#29194
Eureka! The Relationship of Good Science Writing to Risk Communication 
A look at the importance of science writing in helping the public to understand issues that affect our daily lives so that we can make informed decisions concerning risk.
Holland, Anton. Writer's Block (2005). Articles>Scientific Communication>Risk Communication
#24933
The European Network of Science Communication Teachers
The project brought together leading institutions and individuals involved in science communication teaching from across Europe, to exchange ideas on good practice in teaching.
#24161
An Examination of Factors That Affect the Credibility of Online Health Information
The study reported in this article examined the effect of street address and external links on perceptions of credibility of a Web page. The study attempted to determine how readers process these cues by drawing on key theories in both technical communication and psychology, including the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The article includes a review of relevant literature on which the experiment reported here was based, hypotheses concerning the expected outcomes of the experiment, the methodology, the results, and a discussion of the results. Finally, conclusions and implications for future research are discussed.
Freeman, Krisandra S. and Jan H. Spyridakis. Technical Communication Online (2004). Design>Web Design>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#13846
Exchanging Medical Information with Eastern Europe Through the Internet
The American International Health Alliance, a national not-for-profit healthcare organization initiated in 1992, uses Internet technologies to aid in the exchange of medical information between healthcare providers in the U.S. and their colleagues in Eastern Europe and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. A major role in the exchange is played by Information Coordinators--physicians, nurses, or administrators in the partnership institutions in the region. Through a questionnaire distributed during a training session in the U.S. and e-mail exchanges, we interviewed these Information Coordinators to learn how Internet technologies are being introduced, disseminated, and adopted in their institutions. We then applied Everett Rogers's theory of the diffusion of innovations to help interpret their responses. Although now only in its preliminary stages, this study shows that technical communicators must be aware of the cultural influences--economic, political, ethnic, and institutional--that accompany technology as they communicate about such innovations across borders of culture, expertise, and ideology.
Daniels, Julie K., Ruth J. Cronje and Beth C. Sokolowski. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Scientific Communication>Regional>Eastern Europe
#20323
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
#29225
Florence Nightingale's Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams
Florence Nightingale is usually pictured as an angelic nurse tending to British soldiers in military hospitals during the Crimean War. Although Nightingale was indeed a tender of soldiers, she was also an administrator, advocate for the common soldier, and proponent of the use of statistics and information design. This article examines Nightingale's rose diagrams, which she designed following her service as the director of nurses at a field hospital in the Crimean War. When the war ended, Nightingale was asked by the queen to write a report on the poor sanitary conditions and make recommendations for reform. When, after six months, the government did not act on the reforms, Nightingale decided to write an annex to the report, in which she would include her invention, the rose diagrams. Nightingale's ultimate success in persuading the government to institute reforms is an illustration of the power of visual rhetoric, as well as an example of Nightingale's own passionate resolve to right what she saw as a grievous wrong.
Brasseur, Lee. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Technical Illustration
