Journal Links and Writing Science Articles

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - and I know what you're trying to do with the philosophy topics there, but they still might do better here - way less crowd, sadly, but more nuance.

[Buster's Uncle]

And I just posted a quantum computer story because, techno-blob adjacent.  I find that sort of thing boring, so feedback would help me cater to your druthers.

[Buster's Uncle]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0488-4

-That's about Paleolithic knapping tech, but I wanted to say that intelligence studies are indeed fascinating, not just the stuff with hand-jiving monkeys.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - and in writing up a sample or two to show Johns Hopkins -and do let them see your blog, which demonstrates your mastery of science and language, which demonstrates that you are ready once taught style; that's a young man they can do something with and help if they're any good- I have two very general bits of advice, both that you already know:

By default, you're not dry as dust, but you are too dry.  I haven't figured out what's to be done about that, as you do work in humor in your blog articles, but your mode of expression in humor is naturally low-affect/subtle/droll.  I work heavily in sarcasm myself, IRL, but the inflection in text issue tends to be a problem.  It would be a mistake for you to wacka-wacka that excrement up the way I might, 'cause humor is an intuitive gut thing, never more craft than art, despite the efforts of many an improv coach.  Throwing in some jokes is far from the only tactic to liven up your writing, of course, but deserving of contemplation, including the possibility that you should avoid trying jokes (unless you would have made one anyway...)  But you could stand to figure out some angle of attack on the fact that, as long as I've known you, you have a fundamentally low-affect/somber mode of expression in print.

(My own TOE for humor is that it works on the shock of recognition.  There's frequently a set-up and reverse -the most common comedy theory teachers of comedy use- and always at least a moment of surprise.  Theories about words ending in K are garbage.  But hippies are funny.  Monkeys are funny.  At renfairs, turkey legs are funny.  These are things that it's hard to blow a joke involving, and there are more, so try to notice them, remember, and use in the right place.)


The other is - cut.  Cut to the bone.  You've been a little ruined by your academic training, that you write science consistently to prove your case, not just to explain that bit of science..  You're going to have to focus.

A basic journalism principal (that gets frequently forgotten at most levels of the profession, alas) is to assume your audience knows nothing.  Not least in science writing.  You do that, writing like you're teaching sophomore science, assuming they'll need to know all the digressions, like parallax is how (Ed) Hubble was able to measure the distance of close cephid variables, 'and here's how that works, in short'.  Does someone unfamiliar with parallax, but reading that astronomy article, need to learn now, or will (s)he take your assertion that "Hubble measured" on faith?  You'll find the latter more true.

(Also, your parallax digression could have been shorter and simpler and clearer.  "Hold a finger still a foot in front of your face.  Closing one eye at a time and switching back-and-forth rapidly you'll see it move against the background.  Your pupils are roughly three inches apart.  By taking photos of a star twice, six months apart, you get an observation  baseline of 186,000,000 miles apart, and with WWI technology 100 years ago they could use that measure out to 11 light years away.  [Modern technology has pushed the parallax measurement limit close to 4,000lyr.])  (If this was for an article, I'd pee away 20 minutes, if I had them, trying to cut the wording by half-to-at-least-a-third-less before submitting.  -And I did resist the impulse to insert "this is how binocular vision works" [shrugs].)

Summarize, summarize, summarize, not try to report the whole of the paper with rigor - it's for laymen, not peer-review.  I refer you back to

A thing to be thinking, meanwhile, is about how you approach a science write-up thematically for a broad audience.  You need to figure out going in what the 'hook' is; what about it is of interest to the great unwashed, both the general public and especially them of us as has no particular science education but read science articles anyway.  What's weird, wild, and/or 'sexy' about it?  Is it the cause of anything laymen know about IRL?  Does it make anything light up or help explain life the universe and everything?  Are there any technology implications/possible advances in anything people have or encounter IRL?

What's the central point of what you're translating?  Give it in one sentence before you start elaborating into an article.  -Now throw that one out and give us a short sentence in baby-talk.-  Try writing suggested headlines before you start the rest (you can always add more later as they strike you, and they will, but this is for focus and inspiration).

Summarize, cut to the bone and focus.  You need lean prose more than lively (funny) and more than even familiarity with journalism style.  Your purpose is not to report the paper, but the paper's scientific point.  (You're basically just to write up their conclusion, and focus that.)  (Do mine for any usable quotes in English; journalism hates to assert anything, and loves to tell what somebody said, not least so they get any blame.  -Your work needs scientists-quotes to work as journalism; notice this in the next few mainstream science articles you read; lotsa quotes.)

[Buster's Uncle]

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/science_paper/file_attachment/309/published_AJ_WASP_39b_paper.pdf


(Happily, there's a place in science writing for nuking the topic from orbit -mostly textbooks, but also prep/cribsheets for briefing spokesmen in PR stuff, also a politician's staff science consultant, and both the latter cases will need a horkheimer leading the thorough nuking that's only there in case of questions- and you done got that covered.  When you get versatile enough to cover a story any way from UPI to horkheimered to National Geographic to your blog, your chance to get money for writing about science, regularly, [and to save the monkeys and push the blob and straighten the ****wits out about how science is done] will be optimized.)

[Buster's Uncle]

Also, cheat for your JH writing sample to the extent of finding the article the journal link you chose is from before you start writing - no need to follow the pro writer in focus or arrangement or anything, but merely to study how (s)he approached dumbing it down enough for me to read lightly and not find it a slog.

[Lorizael]

  Thank you, this is good stuff for me to think about. Especially...

You've been a little ruined by your academic training, that you write science consistently to prove your case, not just to explain that bit of science..  You're going to have to focus.

Man, I know this is my problem, but I've never quite been able to figure out why I go on digression after digression. But yeah, you're absolutely right, I'm trying to prove rather than explain.

[Buster's Uncle]

Good man.  Owning it straight up without self-hatred.  You CAN do this.

I do better than I should at tying it all together on the fly by the end of a long post, but yes, I do personally grok having a problem with digression.

[Buster's Uncle]

I need to add that I have read your entire blog unless you added something in the last week.  You know I read it, but I need to remind you.  I did not start as a favor to you, but because I like and respect you (oh, tell your inner child to shut the **** up; you've never caught me in a lie because I've never told you one; I like and respect you) and I'm a nosy SOB.  I was being nosy.  I'd have skimmed if you sucked, and never brought it up.  I didn't have to read everything because you weren't watching - my eyes bounced off anything faintly mathy, yes, and it was more work than I prefer in reading to be reading, but I did read everything not-mathy - because you told me stuff I didn't know.  I don't deny that it was a slog, but I read everything by choice and learned.  If I wasn't gay for outer space, yeah, I'd have skimmed, like, two posts really fast and never gone back.  But people who like the kind of thing you talk about are your audience and no one else, so it works as the thing you intended.

This is an order; believe it all the way down that you are good enough that a high IQ space nut, but a lazy reader w/ a psychological block for maths and with no college-level hard science whatsoever (communications is a 'science' - a soft, soft [progeny of unmarried parents] of sociology and vocational school for mass media taken mostly by former business majors who couldn't handle the accounting math and former English majors who couldn't pass French) read the whole thing and learned stuff.

You did that.  You can do this.

[Buster's Uncle]

-And if all else fails, cut me in for a third, maybe 25% -I do nothing but edit/re-write you and you do all the rest of the work reading papers, generating basic copy/translating, and dealing with venues- and we'll collaborate.

-Also, I could handle the papers in communications, I know for an absolute fact -Mylochka holds a PhD in communications and I've read a lot of the literature at that level helping her with syllabi, (and the level of writing and the rigor thereof is disappointing in that field)- and maybe some adjacent soft sciences, too...

Just, when your inner Lori is hatin' on you hard enough about trying to be the next Carl Sagan/Neil Degrassi Jr High Tyson, remember the option is available, and you'll learn the ropes and not need me forever and I could use the pocket money for a while, so self-interest and not a favor, no long-term commitment, but I do got your back and tell the crazy to shut up when that happens in regard to this aspiration of yours...

[Buster's Uncle]

And if we ever become acquainted IRL, I'll try to get you laid. That's both a joke and true; I'm not bad at arranging for anyone but me to get some lovin'.

[Buster's Uncle]

What if I was to change your custom user title to "Literally a self-hating jew"?  Funny, too on the nose, or both?

It IS funny, sorry.

[Lorizael]

Well, I think I'd hate myself even if I weren't a Jew.

[Buster's Uncle]

  I don't doubt it for a second - but where's the shock of recognition in "Self-hating person"?

[Rusty Edge]

Well, I think I'd hate myself even if I weren't a Jew.

I'll take you at your word.

But it doesn't have to stay that way. I know it's uncomfortable for introverts like us, but by sustaining an effort to be kind/nice to people, talking to and smiling at strangers- both you and others will feel better about you. I had a sales job after working more or less alone for 20 years. I had to learn to connect with people, so I practiced everywhere I went.  A simple good morning, weather comment, or, being a scientist with mad observation skills- you can find something to sincerely compliment.

It's not easy, but it gets easier. When you see somebody's face light up when you tell them that you hope you have hair as great as they do when you reach their age, it will make both of your days.

You managed your move, you can do this, too!