Ideas into Words Mastering the Craft of Science writing e hancock 2003 docx

[...]... of the best of them do, but some of the best of them don’t They must, though, be able to learn science, be eager to wade into its complexities, ask intelligent questions, and shake off the high intimidation quotient of a dense, jargon-laden article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Elise was a member of this breed; she was an English major in college and took only a handful of science. .. the reader in mind, not only as they write but also in the finding out that comes before They do their research with integrity, digging deep, and they write with the same care They connect as deeply with the ma- Ideas into Words 2 terial as they do with the readers Indeed, their curiosity and its fruits are a large part of what the reader senses, of what lets the reader trust them—a process that begins... mountain of jigsaw pieces from several puzzles—or so you think But you cannot be sure, because pieces may be missing Nevertheless, you start sorting your evidence These two are not only the same ineffable blue, but innie and outie link precisely These two no, here’s another one these three look like they might be parts of a basket but do not link And here are some leaves, and several pieces with... great things They wrote for Time and Discover and Life They edited the magazines of elite universities They wrote books, won awards and fellowships, made names for themselves And their writing lives mostly started in that little of ce in Whitehead Hall that Elise, with her madcap creativity and breathtaking intelligence—you’ll see ample evidence for both in the pages that follow—made entirely hers Elise... hadn’t the sheer verbal facility of some who came through her door, I had enough of this other quality to keep landing assignments A conference on war gaming A peculiar moving-walkway engineering project Then, longer pieces on recombinant DNA, evolution, the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay, particle physics, laser surgery Over the next ten years or so, I did about three dozen pieces for her, most of them... of science courses.Yet in sending her magazine out to joust with science, medicine, and technology, she was fearless Once, long ago—before the genome project, before the rise of the big biotech companies—two Johns Hopkins researchers figured out how to snip DNA, the molecule that embodies life’s genetic heritage, at particular points Pretty soon, scientists were taking pieces of DNA from bacteria and... conference, I walked out of a room behind two people who were grousing about the talk just delivered by John Bethell, for many years editor of the prizewinning Harvard Magazine “I could do a great magazine too if I had his budget,” said one “Yeah,” said the other “Fat chance He’s really lucky See you at the bar?” Ten minutes later, while the grousers were presumably at the bar, I walked by the room... it’s a waste of effort, because you already are original There is no one else who sees the world or uses the language precisely as you do Nor has anyone else done precisely the interviews and research and thinking you have done So relax Save all your energy for understanding the subject, and as you write, keep asking yourself, “What am I really trying to say?” Then say it The result will be original... other people do the same work, they will get the same results In other words, evidence is supposed to be true A good scientific theory wins by best approximating reality It must account for whole swathes of evidence, preferably from many directions, and it must be able to answer any sensible objections—not just shoot them down with a wisecrack or persuade a dozen key decision makers, but answer them... recognize because, well, it fits It answers the most questions with the greatest precision and the fewest loose ends There’s a satisfactory click, as in some arcane gadget from the old Abercrombie & Fitch, and everything comes together Aha! Here’s bedrock, a firm place to stand And then, from that bedrock, one sees a new world (Well! If that’s true, then ) Think of the scientific process as if you faced . Some of the best of them do, but some of the best of them don’t. They must, though, be able to learn sci- ence, be eager to wade into its complexities, ask intelligent questions, and shake off the. person- alities. There were only the words, and the ideas they ex- pressed, that were our job, together, to get right. Nothing else mattered. And everything that mattered was on that page. I write of a time. Sunrise, but little else of merit. After we’d begun to work together, I let Elise read it. At the time, she was tactful, even gentle. But later, whenever I wrote something that pleased her, any