The National Association of Science Writers invites applications for the Laura Van Dam Travel Fellowships to this summer's meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists in Helsinki, Finland, June 24-28, 2013. Update: We will be notifying applicants by March 12.
Science writing news
That's the view of children’s science magazine editor Elizabeth Preston writing on SciLogs. Children give your writing "an almost scary amount of attention," she says. "They read the masthead, the photo credits and the advertisement on the back cover. If there’s a typo somewhere, they will notice it. And then they will write letters about it. (There are few things more demoralizing as an editor, I can report, than having an 11-year-old point out your homonym error.)"
Ever been sued over a story? Jack Limpert has, and he recalls sleepless nights, long depositions, and five-figure legal bills for months when nothing much happened. And the settlement: "Other journalists then write and talk about the settlement, suggesting that it appears you had to apologize for your bad behavior, that it probably cost you a lot of money, that it showed how dumb you are. And you can only silently curse the legal gods." Part two.
How do you manage that "hot little ball of panic" when you're near deadline on a medical story? Daniel J. DeNoon offers tips at AHCJ: "Too many interviews eat up your day. And it’s a bad idea to burn people whom you might need in the future by telling them 'thanks but no thanks' when they call. On the other hand, interviews fall through all the time. My usual M.O. is to line up three experts. You almost always get one, and three interviews is not too hard to manage."
Ten years ago, the Los Angeles Times had 1,776 stories exceeding 2,000 words. Last year, it had 256, Dean Starkman writes at CJR. Of four big papers, only the New York Times bucked the trend. Does it matter? Starkman thinks so: "No one equates story-length with quality. Let’s start with that concession. But still. Story-length is hardly meaningless when you consider what it takes to explain complex problems, like say, the financial crisis, to the broader public."
Need a word's definition? Just type it into Google, preceded by the string "define:" and Google will look it up on dictionary.com, which also has an audio clip showing how to pronounce it. That's among the tips in this large graphic from hackcollege.com. Also included are tips for searching Google Scholar, as well as some common keyboard shortcuts for zooming in and out, cycling through windows and applications, and making screenshots of the whole screen or a part.
What's new with the flu? Well, it's an average flu season. Or maybe it's a bad flu season. We'll see. The flu therapy Tamiflu is lacking effectiveness data, and the current vaccines aren't great either. But there's hope for new vaccines effective against many flu viruses — and maybe other respiratory viruses. Not soon, though. Also: Ice recession research in Alaska. Why 'Net content goes viral. In memoriam Carl Woese, who deserved a Nobel but now won't get one.
For self-conscious print journalists, being interviewed on radio can be unnerving. Media trainer Brad Phillips offers a dozen tips for easing into the airwaves: "I’ve done hundreds of radio interviews throughout my career. They seem simple. After all, you just pick up a phone or visit a studio and have a conversation with the host. But radio interviews are nothing like normal conversations (unless your friends take listener phone calls and go to commercial breaks!)."
No word on whether Jonah Lehrer will attend (we're guessing not), but the American Copy Editors Society is organizing the National Summit on Plagiarism and Fabrication this April in St. Louis. Meanwhile, the ACES home page offers two recent posts on how copyeditors can help stop plagiarized and fabricated stories from being published. Also, John McIntyre on how copyediting is like parenting a teen.