Using the active voice in writing and your careers

Nature magazine has a great career section at the back of each issue.  I thought you would like this recent article on the importance of young scientists communicating their work, to both the public and to possible collaborators.  Even if you do not do research, the ability to communicate what it is you do and your accomplishments is an important part of the vital networking that is needed in all careers.

The author makes a nice connection between the active voice in writing, science communication and in ones career.

End of the year project roundup

Here is a summary of upcoming deadlines for course projects:

Presentations will be given April 14th and 21st.  You can find your presentation day here.

Videos need to be finished and ready to view by April 21st.  Please email me to let me know when you need a video camera.  One group has already finished their shooting.

Long form blog posts are due on your blogs by April 28th.  We mentioned five guidelines for these posts, and that you could use Not Exactly Rocket Science as a model.  You can also check out posts at Research Blogging:

1. They should cover one or two articles from the primary literature
2. They should be written in a way that a non-scientist would understand
3. They should be entertaining - use the readings and discussion from this semester, and your blogging experience
4. Shoot for around 800-1000 words
5. Try to give a feel for the hypothesis of the study, if there was one, and how the study was done.  How was science used to answer a question in this paper?  You don't need to go into detail about methods, unless you can make it entertaining (see point 3 above)
6. Use hyperlinks when appropriate, and cite your paper at the end.  Use the doi number for your paper if it has one.

And of course email questions to me if you have them.