A Field Guide for Science Writers, Second Edition Deborah Blum Mary Knudson Robin Marantz Henig, Editors OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS ■■■■■ A FIELD GUIDE FOR SCIENCE WRITERS This page intentionally left blank A Field Guide for Science Writers SECOND EDITION EDITED BY Deborah Blum Mary Knudson Robin Marantz Henig 1 2006 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2006 by National Association of Science Writers Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Field guide for science writers : the official guide of the National Association of Science Writers / edited by Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, Robin Marantz Henig.—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13 978-0-19-517498-4; 978-0-19-517499-1 (pbk.) ISBN 0-19-517498-4; 0-19-517499-2 (pbk.) 1. Technical writing—Handbooks, manual, etc. I. Blum, Deborah. II. Knudson, Mary. III. Henig, Robin Marantz. T11.F52 2005 070.4'495—dc22 2005001267 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ■■■■■ FOREWORD timothy ferris Science, though young, has already transformed our world, saving over a bil- lion people from starvation and fatal disease, striking shackles of ignorance and superstition from millions more, and fueling a democratic revolution that has brought political liberty to a third of humankind. And that’s only the begin- ning. The scientific approach to understanding nature and our place in it—a deceptively simple process of systematically testing one’s ideas against the ver- dict of experiment—has opened limitless prospects for inquiry. There is no known limit to the knowledge and power that may, for better or worse, come within our grasp. Yet few understand science, and many fear its awesome power. To the uncomprehending, the pronouncements of scientists can sound as opaque as the muttered spells of magicians, and the workings of scientific technology resemble, as the French say of the law, a machine that cannot move without crushing someone. Technophobes warn that science must be stopped before it goes “too far.” Religious fundamentalists enjoin the righteous to study only one (holy) book, consulting what Galileo called the book of nature only insofar as it serves to confirm their beliefs. Fashionable academics teach that science is but a collection of socially conditioned opinions, as changeable as haute couture. Popular culture is so suspicious of science that, according to one study, scien- tists portrayed in American feature films are more likely to be killed by the last act than are members of any other profession, including Western gunslingers and Mafia hit men. The cure for fear and loathing of science is neither propaganda nor per- suasion but knowledge—conveyed, preferably, in stories that capture and reward an audience’s attention. Science writers, whose work involves crafting such stories, are few in number, relatively unheralded, and often underesti- mated: Like sportswriters and business journalists, they are too often assumed v to be mere interpreters or translators rather than “real” writers, as if crafting an accurate, evocative paragraph about biochemistry or quantum physics were less of an achievement than doing the same thing when the subject was a lotus blossom or a love affair. But we science writers also enjoy certain advantages. We have what are, in many respects, the best stories to tell—the most momen- tous, important, and startlingly original stories, as you will find demonstrated by the writers collected here. Plus, science writers tend to be generous in spirit. “Interested in writing about science?” reads the subtext of this rich and read- able book. “Come on over and give it a try!” Heed their counsel, accept their invitation, give it your best shot, and I’m betting you’ll never go back. vi Foreword ■■■■■ EDITORS’NOTE In the eight years since publication of the first edition of A Field Guide for Sci- ence Writing, much about the world has changed. Science writing has changed, too. Once the province of nerds and the nerds they wrote about, the field has evolved, becoming at once more esoteric—because science itself has become more esoteric—and more a part of daily life. Some of the leading issues in today’s political marketplace—embryonic stem cell research, global warming, health care reform, space exploration, genetic privacy, germ warfare—are informed by scientific ideas. Never has it been more crucial for the lay public to be scientifically literate. That’s where science writers come in. And that’s why it’s time for an update to the Field Guide, already a staple of science writing graduate programs across the country. When we first undertook this venture in the mid-1990s, it was something new for the National Association of Science Writers. From its beginnings in 1934 as an old boys’ club of about a dozen science writers, NASW is today a pro- fessional organization with nearly 2,500 members. As the organization has grown, so has the profession—and now more than ever we need to be clear about what the profession is all about. Writing well about science requires, first of all, bridging the jargon gulf, act- ing as translators between the sciencespeak of the researchers and the short atten- tion spans of the public at large. But great science writing doesn’t stop there. You can paint an awesome picture of space exploration with all its glittering astrotoys, but you also have a responsibility to probe its failures. You can point out the ben- efits of genetically modified crops or the mapping of the human genome, but you also must explore their potential to do harm. It’s not enough to focus on the sci- ence itself; the best reporting also discusses safeguarding the public from the risks vii of the new knowledge and talks about the cost of Big Science and who has to pay for it. The academic community has recently recognized how important it is for science writers to become more sophisticated, knowledgeable, and skeptical about what they write. More than 50 institutions now offer training in science writing. In addition, mid-career fellowships for science writers are growing, giving journalists the chance to return to major universities for specialized training. We applaud these developments, and hope to be part of them with this new edition of the Field Guide. In these pages, we’ve assembled contributions from a collection of experi- enced science writers who are every bit as stellar as the group that contributed to the first edition of the Field Guide. When we editors thought about who would be best to contribute a particular chapter on writing for a particular medium—newspapers, magazines, trade journals, books, broadcasting, or the Web—or in a particular style—explanatory, investigative, narrative, essay, or what one contributor calls “gee whiz science writing”—we began by asking the top practitioners of that medium or that style. And guess what—they said yes! So what we have here are essays written by the very best in our profession. Their voices differ from one chapter to another, but that’s what we wanted—a book that feels conversational and wise, a chance to pull up a chair and sit beside a kindly aunt or uncle who can tell you how it’s done. These wonderful writers have written not only about style, but about con- tent, too. There’s so much information to impart—some say there are more sci- entific articles published in the United States in a single year than were published from Gutenberg’s day through World War II—that negotiating the morass can be especially daunting for a newcomer. So we asked the leaders of our profession to describe how they work their way through the information glut to find the gems worth writing about. As you can see from the table of con- tents, we’ve asked them to describe how they cover subjects ranging from astronomy to zoology, from the smallest microbe to the universe itself. We also have chapters that provide the tools every good science writer needs: how to use statistics, how to weigh the merits of conflicting studies in the scientific litera- ture, how to report about risk. And, while we’re at it, how to write. As we put all these pieces together, we noticed two themes that kept recur- ring. Both of them seem to capture science writing at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The first relates to narrative. Over and over again, our authors advise you to look for the story, the narrative arc, that will compel your readers to stick around to find out about the science. This has always been a good idea—think back to one of the earliest examples of best-selling science writing, Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, which has been continually in print viii Editors’Note since 1926. What’s new, however, is that more and more writers are seeing the brilliance of doing what de Kruif did, presenting science as one great big story- book adventure. The second recurring bit of advice concerns balance. Traditional journal- ism aims for objectivity by including representatives of both sides of any debate. But in many of the most vigorous debates in science, looking for contrary views would do your readers a disservice. There’s no need to quote from the fringe groups—people who insist that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, or who don’t believe in evolution, or who think Earth is flat—just because they exist. More than in any other field of reporting, balance in science writing requires something other than just providing an equal number of column inches to quotes from each side. Balance in science writing requires authorial guidance; it requires context, and knowing when certain points of view simply need to be ignored. The science writers who contributed the bookends for the Field Guide, the foreword and the epilogue, are among the most luminous practitioners of the craft. Each of them graciously set aside his other obligations to take the time to think about our profession’s particular strengths and challenges, hoping to illu- minate the recondite corners of science writing in a way that will help the next generation. We would like to offer here a thank you to Tim Ferris and Jim Gleick, two men who have spent their careers elevating science writing by glo- rious example. Tim is the author of such brilliant books as Coming of Age in the Milky Way (1988) and The Whole Shebang (1997) and was once described as writing “as if brushed with stardust.” Jim, whom one critic called the “consum- mate craftsman,” writes books that are equally brilliant, including the best- sellers Chaos (1987) and Genius (1992), as well as Isaac Newton (2003), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. While we’re expressing appreciation, we’d like to thank all our other con- tributors, too, whose compensation was so small as to make their work for us essentially voluntary. They were entirely professional at every point of the process, responding with grace and speed to editorial direction that could have been awkward, coming as it did not only from colleagues and friends, but from a trio of us. Thanks, guys—you made it easy. Thanks, too, to Joan Bossert, our editor at Oxford University Press, for see- ing the need to update the Field Guide and for enthusiastically getting behind the project, as well as to her assistant Jessica Sonnenschein. Thanks to Mary Makarushka, whose sharp organizational skills kept the three of us on track during this book’s assembly, and to Diane McGurgan of NASW, who always put in the extra effort on our behalf. And thanks to the organizations that provided much-needed financial support to see this project through: the Alfred P. Sloan Editors’Note ix [...]... has written two popular science books :The Bit and the Pendulum (2000) and Strange Matters (2002).His work has been recognized with awards from the American Chemical Society ,the American Psychiatric Association ,the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Association of Science Writers For police reporters, there are crimes For political writers, elections Sportswriters have... breaks the embargo Once any publication breaks an embargo, other media will no longer observe it Preparing Thanks to the availability of journal papers in advance of publication, science writers usually have a fair amount of preparation time before applying fingers to keyboards Take advantage Don’t wait until the last minute Download the 14 Learning the Craft paper as soon as possible, and collect whatever... things manageable, set up an agenda before you actually get to a big meeting, preferably well before the airplane ride there Look over the program and abstracts Then map out which talks you want to attend The invited talks are easier to grasp: Most of the contributed abstracts are by graduate students presenting their data to their immediate colleagues, and you have to be pretty familiar with the topics... You can also subscribe to mailing lists of media relations of ces at universities, medical centers, and other research institutions and sign up for various industry newsletters When surfing the Web for science information, don’t forget major government websites, such as those of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institutes of Standards and... other databases to find the authors’ earlier papers and related papers by other scientists If you’re unfamiliar with the new paper’s field, a general review article or a basic encyclopedia entry can familiarize you with essential terminology And then—and here is the key step in the process—read the paper Not all science journalists do Some read the news release, glance at the paper, and then call up the. .. researcher and ask a few questions Go ahead and take that approach if your goal is mediocrity If you want to be good, you have to learn how to read a scientific paper critically When I read a paper, I usually first scan the abstract and then read the introductory paragraphs to get a sense of the context for the research I then go to the conclusions section at the end, so I’ll know what the authors have... say about the ramifications of their work and what to pay attention to when reading the rest of the paper Then I’ll read the paper through, watching for things that might raise questions about the work (where did the data come from, how statistically significant are the results, any peculiarities about the methodology, presence or absence of control groups, etc.) Then I look at the data tables and graphs,... peer-reviewed journal, that doesn’t mean it warrants a story Ask a Paper’s Authors About Previous News Coverage of Their Work You want to make sure that what you think is new really is, and wasn’t widely reported last year after a presentation at a meeting Ask About Potential Conflicts of Interest For example, do any of the researchers have a financial stake in a company that could profit from a study’s findings?... news—particularly the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the biology journal Cell, and the neuroscience journal Neuron And the Nature publishing group has flooded the media journal market with a whole roster of specialty journals on such topics as neuroscience, biotechnology, genetics, and materials science Other important journals for medicine include Annals of Internal Medicine and several... professors, teaching assistants, and even fellow students who have pursued science as a career Just ask them what is the most interesting thing going on in their field right now Meetings are the most efficient way to connect with a lot of sources The biggest, at least for the diversity of topics offered, is the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), held in February Typically, . contribute a particular chapter on writing for a particular medium—newspapers, magazines, trade journals, books, broadcasting, or the Web—or in a particular style—explanatory, investigative, narrative,. in 1934 as an old boys’ club of about a dozen science writers, NASW is today a pro- fessional organization with nearly 2,500 members. As the organization has grown, so has the profession—and now. gunslingers and Ma a hit men. The cure for fear and loathing of science is neither propaganda nor per- suasion but knowledge—conveyed, preferably, in stories that capture and reward an audience’s attention.