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.

Your most popular blog posts

Thanks to the many of you who sent in your nominations for favorite blog post so far this semester.  Without further ado, here they are roughly in the order received:

• Nice guys finish first
• The wonder of caves
• Crack is whack, but could red bull give you wings?
• Heil . . .?
• What the Frisch?
• Night owl syndrome
• Zombies do exist
• Whale (and other) wars
• What color is a polar bear?

That's a lot of fine science blogging.

Assessment test review

OK, putting the word "assessment" in a post title is probably not the best way to attract readers.  But since this is an assignment post, you don't really have a choice anyway.

Here are your assignments for next week's class:

1. Review your answers to the assessment exam and identify at least three questions that you would like to discuss in class this coming week.  Look into the material relevant to the question before class.
2. Identify a topic that you would like to cover in your 5-minute power point presentations.  This should be a topic that you discovered that you could know better after taking the assessment exam.  You will get additional guidelines for this presentation in class.
3. I have emailed to you a link to a Google documents page with the start of a "What Every Biologist Should Know" list.  I have added the first two items.  Based on your review of the assessment test or your own experience, add at least three items to this list.  These should be topics/concepts/specifics that you think anyone graduating with a bachelors degree in biology should know.
4. Determine who your partners will be for your 60-second science video.  It would also be great if you can start discussing topics for that video.  I believe that two groups have already identified potential topics.
5. And lastly, be thinking about a topic for your long-form blog post, due later this semester.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, this project should be similar to the News and Views review articles found in the journal Nature, or the long form posts on Not Exactly Rocket Science, which are typically around 1000 words and explain the findings of one to three primary literature articles.  You can focus on a topic that you know well and that interests you, or use this opportunity to learn more about a new area.  We will discuss this project more in class this week.

And of course keep watching this and each other's blogs for new posts.

What else are you going to do over spring break?

I hope you are all enjoying some down time this week.  This post is meant to give you a heads up on the course projects left this semester, and a couple of things to do before our next meeting (at the end of the list).

• Keep thinking about potential ideas for your 60 second videos.  We will do some planning at our next meeting.
• Do you already realize that there is some area of biology that you should know better?  That could make a great topic for your presentation later this semester.
• You can be scouting out a topic for your long-form blog post on some article from the primary literature.  For some ideas on what this writing can be like, check out the posts at Not Exactly Rocket Science, an outstanding science blog by Ed Yong.  Or you can model your post after the review articles found in journals like Nature.  Check out this recent review from Nature's News and Views section on how mosquitos smell their human hosts (can be viewed on the AU network).
• Read chapter 4 in Don't Be Such a Scientist and be ready to discuss it in class when we get back.
• Look over the posts written so far by your colleagues for this class this semester, and take note of what you think are the best two.  Leave a comment to this post naming what you think are the best two posts, or if you prefer, email your nominations to me.  And don't forget to keep commenting on each other's posts.  

How to add a StatCounter to your blog

I will let the video speak for itself

Accuracy or boredom - your comments please

In Chapter 3 of Don't Be Such a Scientist Randy Olson describes the trap that we can fall into when communicating science.  Scientists are trained to prize accuracy above all else, and should constantly be skeptical of the things they read.  But striving for complete accuracy and completeness in stories about science can make them, well, boring.  Randy's advice, keep your story concise and interesting, even if you must sacrifice some detail.  As an example he compares the effects of two documentaries on public thinking about global climate change: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and another that I never heard of.

Check out some recent examples from the science blogosphere that express the frustration of some scientists with the approach that Randy advocates.  On the lighter side, Christie at Observations of a Nerd pointed out a biological inaccuracy in the latest episode of Psych, which really ruined her enjoyment of the episode (as well as that of many of her commenters).

On the more serious side, read over the beginning of this post from the DrugMonkey blog.  A little bit of background - Matt Nisbet is a professor of communications who posts at Framing Science, and advocates an approach similar to what Randy is writing about in his book.  Check out how this approach of "framing" your science message to your audience, in effect sacrificing some detail or nuance to get your point across, is described on DrugMonkey.

So what do you think?  Which of these two approaches do you believe is more appropriate?  Have these been issues for you as you write your posts?

Please leave your comments below.