Some people fret over the chances that lightning might strike the same place twice. After three summers trailing lightning-chaser Tim Samaras on a unique photographic quest, science writer George Johnson would perhaps have been content with it happening just once. On assignment for National Geographic, Johnson patiently waited and watched as Samaras tried to capture a [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Notes’
George Johnson chases lightning
Posted by Siri Carpenter on February 26th, 2013
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews 
Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Field Reporting, Johnson, National Geographic, Notes, Writer Interview 
2 Comments »Ed Yong profiles a scientific dynasty
Posted by Carl Zimmer on February 19th, 2013
Science is practiced by people, and people never work in isolation. Scientists train their students, who grow up to be scientists in their own right and train students to follow in their own footsteps. Along the way, scientific dynasties emerge, working together to establish new ways of thinking and applying their ideas to new problems. [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Guest Contributor, Nature, Notes, Profile, Writer Interview, Yong, Zimmer 5 Comments »Greg Miller examines mental health care in Indonesia
Posted by Siri Carpenter on June 13th, 2012
For many people in the developing world who are mentally ill, psychiatric care is little more than a prison sentence. In one corner of Indonesia, that’s beginning to change, thanks in part to the 2004 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region, providing a final impetus to develop a mental health system that had long [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Field Reporting, Miller, Notes, Psychiatry, Science, Tools, Writer Interview 1 Comment »Ask TON: Organizing notes
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann and Siri Carpenter on June 6th, 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: I have a confession. I don’t really know how to take good research notes. When I’m reporting feature stories, I end up with [...]
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 »Daniel Engber dissects the ubiquitous laboratory mouse
Posted by Siri Carpenter on January 11th, 2012
When Slate senior editor Daniel Engber took a month off from his usual duties to research a multi-part series on laboratory mice, he had a thesis — that although the ubiquity of mice as model organisms has clear advantages, it is in some ways damaging to biomedicine. What he needed was stories and characters to [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Biomedicine, Carpenter, Drafts, Engber, Historical Research, Longform, Notes, Slate, Tools, Writer Interview 3 Comments »Taking good notes: Tricks and tools
Posted by Siri Carpenter and Jeanne Erdmann on December 6th, 2011
Whether you rely on a digital recorder or a laptop or a ragtag collection of mismatched notebooks, you need to take good notes. That doesn’t just mean that your handwriting needs to be legible — though that matters too. It means that your notes capture the essence of what you have observed, from the words [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Field Reporting, Grimm, Interviewing, Notes, Notetaking, Reporting, Tools 4 Comments »Deborah Blum traces a poisonous history
Posted by Jyoti Madhusoodanan on November 30th, 2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum’s five books have immersed her in the worlds of animal rights, the psychology of affection, the neurology of sex, the search for paranormal phenomena, and the chemistry of poisons. Her best-selling book The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, published in 2010, traces [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Blum, Books, Drafts, Edits, Guest Contributor, Madhusoodanan, Narrative, Notes, Poisoner's Handbook, Structure, Writer Interview No Comments »How Rebecca Skloot built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Posted by David Dobbs on November 22nd, 2011
Rebecca Skloot needs little introduction to most readers of The Open Notebook: Her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been a bestseller since its publication in February 2010, and she has toured the U.S. and Europe almost constantly since then talking about the book and the many issues of race, science, and privacy [...]
Amy Harmon follows a young autistic man into the world
Posted by David Dobbs on October 10th, 2011
On September 18, 2011, the front page of the Sunday edition of The New York Times carried a story remarkable to find in any newspaper: a 7,300-word story that was almost all narrative. Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World, written by Times staffer Amy Harmon, followed a young autistic man named Justin [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Dobbs, Guest Contributor, Harmon, Narrative, Notes, NYTimes, Writer Interview 9 Comments »Maryn McKenna describes life as “Scary-Disease Girl”
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann on August 30th, 2011
For nearly all her career, journalist and author Maryn McKenna has written about public health, from Midwest droughts to bird flu to Gulf War Syndrome. While covering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, McKenna got the nickname “Scary-Disease Girl,” a moniker that befits the infectious disease beat she has [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Books, Erdmann, Health, Infectious Disease, McKenna, Notes, Pitches, SciAm, Soundslides, Superbug, Tools, Writer Interview 3 Comments »David Dobbs deconstructs “My Mother’s Lover”
Posted by Siri Carpenter (text) and Jeanne Erdmann (Soundslides) on July 8th, 2011
When journalist David Dobbs’ mother was dying, she shocked her children by asking that her ashes be spread in the waters off the coast of Hawaii, so that she could be with her former lover, “Angus,” who had been shot down over the Pacific in the last days of World War II. This unexpected request, [...]
Podcast: Play in new window
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Atavist, Carpenter, Dobbs, Drafts, Erdmann, Longform, Narrative, Notes, Soundslides, Structure, Tools, Writer Interview 4 Comments »