Michelle Nijhuis’s Brief Guide to Writing Reported Essays
When I set out to write an essay handbook for science writers, the first problem I ran into is that no one is quite sure how to define an essay. Aldous Huxley wrote that it […]
Brief Guides
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Sharon Begley’s Brief Guide to Writing Medical News
The challenging thing about medical stories is that they can go off the rails before you’ve written the first word—when you choose what to write about. Every week brings hundreds of studies unveiling results, an […]
Charles Seife’s Brief Guide to Writing Opinion
We reporters spend our days gathering facts and talking to experts to learn about a subject. If, at the end of the process, we don’t have any opinions of our own about the matter—well, let’s […]
Susan White’s Brief Guide to Investigations
Great investigative projects usually begin with journalists brave enough to be guided by their own curiosity even if their sources—or their colleagues—think they’re a bit daft. Such journalists allow themselves to articulate the embarrassingly obvious, […]
Carl Zimmer’s Brief Guide to Writing Explainers
Imagine you’re a crime reporter writing a story about a shooting at a nightclub. Now imagine that none of your readers know what a gun is. Suddenly, your story got a whole lot harder to write. You can’t just jump into the shooter’s backstory, or the victim’s suffering, or the detective work that led to an arrest. Instead, you’ve got to explain … Welcome to the science writer’s dilemma.
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Call for Proposals: Early-Career Fellowship Program 
Tools: Planner Pad, the Funnel of Focus 
Taking Good Notes: Tricks and Tools 
Nailing the Nut Graf 
On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness 
A Day in the Life of Nadia Drake 
A Day in the Life of Annalee Newitz 
Pitching Errors: How Not to Pitch 
The Art of the Essay 
Trading the Pipette for the Pen: Transitioning from Science to Science Writing 
Show Me the Money: The Economics of Freelance Science Journalism 
How Rebecca Skloot Built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 
Good Beginnings: How to Write a Lede Your Editor—and Your Readers—Will Love 
A Day in the Life of David Quammen 
David Quammen on Turning Research Into Story, Part I 
Are You a Writer or an Editor? Part I: The Writers 
How to Ace a 300-Word Story: An Interview with Roy Peter Clark 
Mac McClelland Tails Extreme Birders through Cuba 
Are You an Editor or a Writer? Part II: The Editors 
Is a Science Blog Still a Viable Path into Science Journalism?
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