No less an authority than Poynter's Roy Peter Clark thinks the plagiarism police need to rope it in. In a post that his bosses disowned via an editor's note, Clark writes: "Too scrupulous an ethic on plagiarism will lead, I fear, to witch hunts. Plagiarism — along with its cousin fabrication — should be policed. The punishments for wrongdoers should be harsh. But the word plagiarism should be confined to clear-cut cases of literary and journalistic fraud."

If you attend the 8th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ2013), in Helsinki in June, be prepared, even if not to hug some trees, at least to go into the woods for some scientific — and social — interactions with your lumber-loving hosts. Indeed, a sure conference highlight will be “science at midnight,” a seminar on the development of innovative and renewable wood-based materials for the future, held in the heart of a coniferous boreal forest.

Getting full text of academic journals can be difficult unless you work for a major university or a large corporation that has an account. The National Association of Science Writers has made arrangements for its members with several outlets, including Elsevier and Annual Reviews. This page has a summary of those and other journal resources, and how to apply for access to them. Thanks to the publishers and to NASW member David Levine for the compilation.

Behind the many books of Tracy Kidder lies an editor named Richard Todd. Now they've written a book, Good Prose, which Carl Sessions Stepp reviews in AJR: "Like many fine editors, Todd seems to have trouble pinpointing what he does that is special. What stands out, instead, is a more holistic picture of editing, where shimmery concepts like trust and respect matter as much as technique and wordsmithing." Buy the book from the NASW Bookstore.