ScienceWriters excerpts

- ScienceWriters magazine
- Technology
Nov 15 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
- Technology
From freelance journalist to digital entrepreneur

The digital media age serves up uncertainty as well as opportunity. One solution to the anemic job pool for science writers is to grow beyond journalism into entrepreneurship, specifically into digital publishing. Training for this kind of career growth is exactly what the Knight Digital Media Center offers in its intensive, weeklong workshop called Independent Journalist. From the Fall 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Nov 9 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Social media helps solve an illness outbreak

By the time WCSJ2011 opened in late June, organizers felt entitled to breathe a sigh of relief. The biennial international conference had come together despite a last-minute relocation from conflict-ridden Cairo, Egypt, to Doha, Qatar, and the attendees had arrived mostly without incident. All seemed well. Until about the third day. From the Fall 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Oct 31 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Finding skeletons in the science closet

We often want to know the history of something (cars, relationships, pets) before we invest in it. Learning about the past helps us understand how things, people, and ideas got to where they are today. But often the history or story behind an idea gets left out of science writing. From the Fall 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Oct 22 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Fall 2011 (Vol. 60, No. 4)

Analyzing the #dohabug mystery and other reports from the World Conference of Science Journalists; recent research that can help science writers address risk; a change in the IRS mileage rate; reviews of new books available in the NASW bookstore. Full text visible to NASW members only.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Sep 7 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Now Tweet This! Social media and the news

Not all social media are created equal for news purposes, three studies find. Rick Borchelt discusses them in "Scholarly pursuits: Academic research relevant to the workaday world of science writing." Excerpted from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Aug 31 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Canadian science writers protest government’s muzzling of scientists

The party leaders vying to form the next Canadian government are being urged to “take off the muzzles” from federal scientists. Emily Chung explains the details in an excerpt from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
- Your business
Aug 24 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
- Your business
Get a handle on home-office deductions

Thinking of taking a home office as a tax deduction? Not so fast, says ScienceWriters columnist Julian Block. Just because you can walk 20 feet from your bedroom to your work area and conduct business in your bathrobe doesn’t mean the nook with the computer qualifies as a bona fide office. Excerpted from the Summer 2011 issue.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Aug 17 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Deadline Tokyo: How NPR covered Japan’s disasters

Mobilizing to cover a complex, breaking story on the other side of the world is never easy. Doing it when reliable sources are clamming up is even harder. In this except from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters, Joe Palca discusses how National Public Radio covered Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown.
- ScienceWriters magazine
Aug 9 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
Assessing the space shuttle program

Americans paid dearly for the space shuttle. Was the investment worth it? George Alexander, who covered the shuttle for the Los Angeles Times from the project's initiation in 1972 until 1985, reviews the evidence for and against that proposition. Excepted from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
- ScienceWriters magazine
- State of the craft
Jun 4 2011
- ScienceWriters magazine
- State of the craft
Energetic AAAS panel highlights how science and journalism differ

An AAAS media/science panel delves into the proper role of media in convincing the public about climate change and explores differing views on what precisely makes news, helping illustrate scientists’ and media’s sometimes vast cultural differences. From the Spring 2011 ScienceWriters,

ScienceWriters magazine

ScienceWriters is a quarterly magazine devoted to analytical reporting and commentary on issues in science journalism and public information, both staff and freelance, and to the special interests of members of the National Association of Science Writers, for whom it is published. Sample issue.

A typical issue contains first-hand reports by top-flight journalists on the coverage of major science news events, essays and sidebars on surfacing questions in journalism ethics and behavior, and practical advice from old hands on avoiding pitfalls. A section on useful tips for freelancers is also featured in every issue — from market surveys to what's happening with book and magazine contracts.

Lynne Friedmann, editor since 2000, has a background in journalism and biology. She was a public information officer for the Developmental Biology Center at UC Irvine and the west coast media representative for the National Academies of Science and Engineering before becoming a science communications consultant and freelance science writer in 1988.

NASW members who have obtained an NASW.org username and password can browse and search the full text of all issues of ScienceWriters issues since Fall 1995.

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