At least one market for science writing (especially science journalism) appears to be expanding: writing for scientists, particularly online. It's also a market that can offer unusual professional satisfaction. When you write for scientists, you can ignore many of science and medical journalism's topical fads. On the Web, you can pursue subjects that interest you, delve into more of their technical details, and write about them with surprising flexibility and freedom.
The science writers I consulted before writing this and quote below — almost all freelances who have written for this market — mostly confirm my hunch that it is probably expanding. Some think it is in a holding pattern, but most have a gut feeling that (depending of course on the general economy) science writing for scientists can only grow, and that a significant part of that market will be original online content.
Like everything online, online-only publications for scientists have come and gone. As I write in mid-2004, several of us continue to mourn the disappearance of BioMedNet, which Elsevier dropped at the end of 2003. For several years BMN was an important market. It published at least a couple of news stories every weekday and also covered several basic research conferences annually.
The future of online-only publications like BMN may be uncertain, but several online daily news operations allied with extant print publications are going strong. These publish unique content that does not appear in print. One example is The Scientist, another is New Scientist. Top journals also publish daily news online — among them Nature (Science Update) and Science (ScienceNOW). So does the top cusp publication, Scientific American, which appeals both to those with an armchair interest in science and to scientists themselves. The stories in these publications — typically short, in the 400-600 word range — are written by both staffers and freelances.
CONTENT: WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT
Many — but not all — of the rules about writing for scientists in print apply equally online.
This, for example, is true in print as well as online: When you write for scientists instead of the general public, there's more to write about.
Small developments and less weighty discoveries that are of no interest to folks in general can still fascinate those working in the field. If you're self-employed, that can mean more income. Former BioMedNet writer Henry Nicholls, now a freelance, points out that aiming for this audience can greatly expand the types of pieces you write. "A lot of interesting stories presumably aren't covered in non-specialist media because they are perceived to be too complex," he says.
If you also write for general audiences, recycling is another plus. "You can reslant and reuse the research on your desk. That means a faster turnaround on the second piece, which means more money in your pocket," says freelance Dan Ferber. For Ferber, it's a two-way process. Either he redirects a general-audience article to researchers by exploring the science more deeply, or he finds the germ of a story for generalists in something he's written for scientists.
Many writers and editors with lots of online experience insist that there should be little difference between writing for scientists and for the general public — at least, in terms of explaining the work. Says BioMedNet's former news editor Bea Perks, "There are differences, of course, but unless you're only writing for one ultra-specific audience (Lepidopteran Mouthparts Monthly, say) it's surprising how little one specialist knows about another's field."
Ivan Oransky, who edits online daily news for The Scientist, agrees. Writers, he says, sometimes assume there is a single kind of scientist with a single body of knowledge. "Molecular biologists and ecologists have very little in common, and two random molecular biologists probably have widely divergent interests," he points out. But, he acknowledges, it's sometimes tricky to hit the sweet spot between talking down to some scientist readers and confusing others.
The most obvious difference about writing for this specialized audience (as opposed to general audiences) is the level of technical detail, of course. There are also some less obvious differences. So, just as in any other kind of writing, you must know your audience.
Freelance Rabiya Tuma says the challenge is to walk the tightrope between incorporating technical detail and losing a news feel. "Scientists are very sensitive to things being oversimplified, yet if you want to write for more than the immediate field you have to explain things and make them accessible."
Lois Wingerson, former US editor-in-chief at BioMedNet, says it can be difficult for writers to shift gears from general audiences to scientists. "Scientists do not approach 'difficult' subject matter with the same mind-set as the general public (apprehension, mistrust, boredom), so [writers] often waste effort trying to convince the reader that something is important or interesting," she says. "Writers don't need to spend as much effort defining terms, and they certainly don't need to spell out such concepts as the need for replication of results."
Christine Soares, formerly online news editor of The Scientist, says she has found that writers have a hard time figuring out the right focus for a story and grasping that technical audiences have different concerns and interests than general audiences. "Take as a completely random example the HapMap project — for a general audience, you're going to focus on basic details of what they're doing and what the ultimate application will be at the 'consumer' level. For a scientist audience, you're going to focus on the structure of the project and its funding, who's participating, as well as any new scientific techniques/procedures that will be employed."
Tuma says she's been at conferences where reporters say "Oh, that's old stuff" and been wrong because they know the field too well. "And I've seen the inverse happen, where a reporter thinks something is super cool and fresh, but it turns out that the field has known about it for a long time, the reporter just hadn't come across it before. In that case, asking a few questions before you decide what story to write is very helpful — though not something that we always have time to accomplish."
MORE ON CONTENT: THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL WEB
For a word-crazy writer like me, one of the best things about writing for scientists on the Web is that it's not much like typical Web-based writing at all. It resembles traditional print writing, but often with fewer constraints. And it is garnished only lightly with electronic doodads. Publications for scientists are not mad for multi-media, so your article doesn't have to take second (or third) place to video documentaries, interactive quizzes, flash and animation, or chat. Hyperlinks, yes, but only rarely will there be slide shows or snazzy static graphics.
Nor is this a deeply collaborative process, as are Web productions for general audiences. It's not like the total-rewrite-by-committee practiced at many print publications either. Usually it's just you and your editor, and since your editor will often be overworked and overwhelmed, there are times when you will hardly be edited at all. If you prove competent, you will be valued for your skill and trusted for your special knowledge. In many cases, you will be left alone to produce your piece your way, instead of being part of a team whose other members regard you as the least valuable player.
[Coming in Part 2: How to write for a scientific audience, especially on the Web, and assessing the future for this sort of science writing.]
(SOME) INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE AGAIN
One of the most hopeful developments in scholarly publishing is the growth of open-access journals, the journals where articles are available without charge to all readers, even freelance science writers. There still aren't many of them: fewer than 1200 by one recent count, an estimated 5% of scholarly journals.
Now there is a search engine dedicated to them. The Directory of Open Access Journals at Lund University in Sweden permits you to search full-text articles in about 280 of them. Some 80 of these are life science journals, with a sprinkling of other science disciplines as well.
I want to love DOAJ, but it has its frustrations. Although the new high-profile journals from the Public Library of Science (PLOS) are listed, for instance, the articles are not in the database. (Full disclosure: I have written for PLOS Biology.) DOAJ rules also exclude some categories of journals, for example those that make their contents available free a few months after publication, such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Many journals that aren't free permit their authors to post full-text articles on their home institution Web sites and make them available to all at no charge. The giant commercial publisher Elsevier, for example, announced such a policy covering its 1800 journals in June [2004]. (More disclosure: I've written for Elsevier too.)
There's also a search engine covering these self-archived articles and other self-archived digital resources (or at least the materials archived on the 300 or so institutional Web sites it trolls). It's called OAIster (motto: "find the pearls"), and is maintained at the University of Michigan.
Long-time freelance Tabitha M. Powledge, aka Tammy, specializes in genomics, neuroscience, and science policy. Since 1997 she has written The Free Lance, a regular column in ScienceWriter.
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