It's Google's world, but at least now it's going to be easier to find your way around, Poynter's Kristen Hare writes in a post about Google's new Media Tools site: "The site offers stops for finding trends and surveys, sections on publishing, a maps engine — including a lite version that allows users to customize maps and add in locations — and even the company’s own Transparency Report, showing requests from governments around the world for removal of content."
Science writing news
Nieman Storyboard gives the annotation treatment to the legendary 1966 Esquire article. Its writer, Gay Talese, admits to resisting the assignment at first because he believed that nothing new could be written about Sinatra: "Sometimes you do what you have to do. Since it was the only job I had going, and since I had a 1-year-old daughter, and since I had financial obligations — I didn’t have any money saved. In 1966, my net worth was just a few thousand dollars."
In his final column, Rick Borchelt shares three seminal pieces of research from the decades past that he think every practitioner of science communication should know and be able to recite word for word. From the Summer 2013 ScienceWriters.
"How many emails do you ignore?" Monya Baker asks in an essay on the companion web site to the Science Writers' Handbook. Baker then offers tips for making sure your email isn't ignored when you're after an interview: "I carefully prepare each introductory email for each source, and I decide ahead of time how I'll follow up. I also tend to use more formal language, closer to what would be found in a scientific paper than in a magazine article."
Only the biggest stars get their publisher's help in arranging a book tour these days, so here's Midge Raymond with some tips for arranging your own. For example, it can be hard to get into a bookstore during the holidays, so it pays to look for alternatives: "Always be thinking beyond the bookstore. Libraries, for example, are always open to author events, particularly if the author is local and there’s an educational component to your book or presentation."
Adrienne LaFrance considers herself a feminist, so it was a surprise when she was told that male sources outnumbered women three-to-one in her stories. In a Medium post, LaFrance analyzes the causes: "I want the best source. Period. That means seeking out the smartest person who says the most interesting stuff. But ultimately this person must also actually agree to talk to me, to speak on-record, and to do it before my deadline, which may or may not be later today."
When in doubt, reboot. That summarizes one tip in this PCWorld compilation on troubleshooting your own PC problems. Other advice includes which malware scanner is best, how to measure your download speeds, and what to do when your computer is slow to start up. There's also a warning about knowing your limitations: "If you think the problem is too complicated, call up a more knowledgeable friend, or bite the bullet and work with a professional tech support service."
You'd be surprised how many people have thought so, Maria Popova writes on Brain Pickings: "Irony — along with its kin, snark and sarcasm — is an art form that thrives on the spoken word, relying on intonation and body language to distinguish it from the literal, so it's had a particularly rocky run translating into written language." An upside-down exclamation point was one 17th-century proposal. Others looked like a tiny triangle and a backwards question mark.
Tabitha M. Powledge reviews the reviews of the new Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. Physics was the star, she decides: "It is certainly true that the hubbub surrounding the physics Prize was this year's noisiest, what with laments over the researchers who were left out. Plus, of course, Peter Higgs's elusiveness. His vanishing act rivals J.D. Salinger's and therefore guarantees that, like Salinger, Higgs is omnipresent in his absence."