Authors of science books often begin as writers of science news. As a science journalist who is looking to write a book, I’ve become very curious as to how other science journalists made the leap forward. I suspected that the questions that go into books might be different from those that drive newspaper and magazine [...]
Archive for May, 2012
Making the leap from news to books: Critical questions
Posted by Charles Choi on May 30th, 2012
Posted in Elements of Craft 
Tags: Blum, Books, Choi, Dobbs, Elements-of-Craft, Guest Contributor, Hutson, Koerth-Baker, McKenna, Narrative, Reporting, Zimmer 
5 Comments »Natural Habitat: Ed Yong
Posted by Siri Carpenter and Jeanne Erdmann on May 23rd, 2012
In our new series “Natural Habitat,” we invite science writers to share their working spaces — offices, spare bedrooms, coffee shops, hammocks — and the accoutrements that help them do their best work. (If you’d like to nominate your office to be featured at Natural Habitat, let us know.) Here, we visit the working lair [...]
Helen Pearson profiles an activist turned scientist
Posted by Siri Carpenter on May 16th, 2012
A good profile of a scientist goes beyond the science itself — and that’s why Helen Pearson’s ears perked up when she learned the personal story of Joe Thornton, a University of Oregon evolutionary biologist whose first career was as a Greenpeace activist, fighting the release of toxic industrial chemicals. Pearson wanted to know what [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Nature, Notes, Pearson, Pitches, Profile, Writer Interview No Comments »Ask TON: Using quotes
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann and Siri Carpenter on May 8th, 2012
Welcome back for another installment of Ask TON. (Wondering what Ask TON is? See here for background information and our introductory post. Click on “Ask TON” above to see previous installments.) Today’s question: A recent NASW post quotes a Slate editor as saying, “We hate quotations at Slate. We almost never use quotes. They don’t do anything. [...]
Natural Habitat: Cassandra Willyard
Posted by Siri Carpenter and Jeanne Erdmann on May 3rd, 2012
In our new series “Natural Habitat,” we invite science writers to share their working spaces — offices, spare bedrooms, coffee shops, hammocks — and the accoutrements that help them do their best work. (If you’d like to nominate your office to be featured at Natural Habitat, let us know.) In this first episode of Natural [...]
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee weaves a tale of scientific rivalry and Nobel celebration
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann on May 1st, 2012
The three cosmologists who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for the 1998 discovery of the accelerating universe were only a few of the dozens of scientists, working on two competing teams, who contributed to the discovery. In a show of team-spirited solidarity, those fortunate enough to be recognized by the Nobel committee invited [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Bhattacharjee, Erdmann, Narrative, Physics, Science, Writer Interview No Comments »