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.

Assignments for the week

During our next two meeting times you will be taking the assessment test.  All you need to bring to class with you is a pencil (OK, I will be bringing some too if you forget).

But there is some blogging and online discussion to do before then.

1. Write one blog post on anything scientific that interests you.  Practice using some of the communication strategies we have been discussing.  Your goal is to inform a non-scientist about something scientific that you find interesting.  When you are done, test out your post by getting some non-science friends to read it.
2. Write one short blog post that links to some piece of science video out on the web.  Many of you said that you thought video was an excellent way to communicate science, and if you look you will find a growing number of bloggers and science sites using video.  Find one that you like and either link to it or embed it in your blog.  If you don't find one that you like, write a short post linking to something else that you like.
3. Think about possible topics for your own 60 second videos.  One possibility - a video on research being done by faculty and students in Kettering.
4. Look for a new list of student blogs on the right and feel free to post comments there.
5. Read or Re-read Randy Olson's chapter 3 - Don't Be Such a Bad Storyteller and look for a discussion question about it on this blog in the next couple of days.

Advice for new science bloggers

Wonderful comments on communicating science with different media.  And I am really enjoying the posts coming in on denialism.  Keep up the great work.

Your blogs have been part of quite an extensive discussion in the science blogosphere over this past weekend.  A very prominent science blogger named Coturnix (the online editor at the open access journal PLoS - and not his real name) posted about student science bloggers, and highlighted our class.  A pretty extensive comment thread on the post, as well as on Facebook, got people discussing why students and early career (young) scientists blog, and why many do not stick with it.  I followed up this discussion with two posts on my own personal blog (post one and two).

The result is that three Biology alums are now fired up to continue the blogs they started in this class last year (Science Haggis and Plague-erism), and a number of other young science bloggers are getting encouragement from the science blogging establishment.

On Sunday Coturnix added another post with great advice for young bloggers, along with links to your current blogs.  I'd like you to read this post for this week's class.  Pay particular attention to what he considers the most effective way to communicate science, and see how you think it relates to the discussion we had with Tom Hayden.

Keep up the good work, and I look forward to some face-to-face discussion.  In the meantime, I'd encourage you to check out some of the student blogs linked here and on the linked posts.  You can always leave a comment on those blogs if you are inspired.