Are you eagerly awaiting the publication of TON‘s first book, The Craft of Science Writing? We are too! (The book drops in February and will be available in independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. It’s available for pre-order now.)
Meanwhile, we’re giving away 20 copies of the Kindle e-book! Learn how to enter.
The winners of The World’s Finest (and Only … As Far as We Know) Science-Themed Peeps Diorama Contest have been chosen, and we’re happy to announce the crème(-filled eggs) de la crème(-filled eggs)!
Conforme se reduce el presupuesto de los medios periodísticos tradicionales y los editores tienen que desempeñar muchas tareas, a los escritores se les pide que asuman un papel más grande al darle forma a sus propias historias. Ya sea que se tenga al mejor editor del mundo o que no se tenga a ninguno, es necesario editarse a sí mismo para lograr la mejor historia posible.
Erica Klarreich’s August 2014 Quanta magazine article “A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces” describes the career arc of Stanford University professor Maryam Mirzakhani, casting the mathematician—winner of the 2014 Fields Medal, often described as mathematics’ Nobel Prize—as a fearless and accomplished scholar. Here, Klarreich tells the story behind her story, including the decision to bury the information that Mirzakhani is the first woman to win a Fields Medal.
When we launched The Open Notebook in October 2010, our goal was modest: to conduct a series of intermittent interviews with writers whose work we admired. It wasn’t long before we started hankering to do more, but […]
Good headlines achieve balance. They pique the reader’s interest without demanding it, they allude to the story without giving it away, and they give specific details without being technical. On top of that, good headlines should also be “funny, surprising, clear or crisp,” says Laura Helmuth, the science and health editor at Slate.
Audio and video provide alternate ways of crafting compelling narratives, but writing for multimedia outlets involves a different set of skills than writing for print. Here, science journalists and producers share their script-writing process—from choosing a medium, to piecing the story together, to clarifying interviews in post-production. And they highlight common pitfalls that writers new to multimedia should watch out for.
Imagine that you are a salesperson tasked with selling a special product. Most people know very little about the product, and many have had a bad experience with similar items. People can’t see what […]
Self-editing is a selfless endeavor. You cut, replace, rearrange, and endlessly reread—all for the reader’s benefit. “Journalism is all about having a sense of empathy with your audience,” says Dan Fagin, director […]
We are pleased to announce the recipients of our newly established fellowship for early-career science journalists, sponsored by a generous grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. We received many excellent applications and would have been very […]
Writing a nut graf can feel like showing your work on a math test or stopping at traffic lights when no one’s around. Ask journalists about how they constructed a nut graf, and some […]
This giving season, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to TON. All donations are being matched, up to a total of $5,000. Learn more here or just click here to donate.
We’re giving away 20 Kindle copies of The Craft of Science Writing!
Giveaway ends December 13, 2019.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
The TON #PeepYourScience contest will return in 2020! Read all about The World’s Finest (and Only … As Far as We Know) Science-Themed Peeps Diorama Contest here and watch this space for more information in January.
Pitching Errors: How Not to Pitch
Tools: Planner Pad, the Funnel of Focus
Taking Good Notes: Tricks and Tools
How Rebecca Skloot Built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Trading the Pipette for the Pen: Transitioning from Science to Science Writing
On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness
Are You a Writer or an Editor? Part I: The Writers
The Science Byline Counting Project: Where Are the Women—and Where Are They Not?
Navigating Newsrooms as a Minority
How to Talk to Your Facebook Friends about Fake News
Explaining Complexity
Nailing the Nut Graf
The Art of the Essay
Feeling Like a Fraud: The Impostor Phenomenon in Science Writing
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