Take a peek inside A Field Guide for Science Writers through a window that opens into the world of writing science for magazines, and you will discover an absorbing, very informative chapter on both the professional and business aspects of magazine writing by a seasoned magazine writer, Janice Hopkins Tanne.
Janice's chapter below is one of 31 chapters in the NASW book on science writing which is scheduled to be published in January 1997 by Oxford University Press. Although the book is written primarily for students and beginning science writers, many of the chapters contain information of value to freelance science writers. For instance, there are chapters on writing books, writing for newspapers, doing science pieces for radio and television, and on earning a living as a full-time freelance science writer. Other chapters discuss tools of writing and reporting-example, "Coping with Statistics" and approaches to writing-examples, "Telling a Good Tale" and "Investigative Science Journalism." Many chapters discuss covering a particular field of science or medicine or the environment. Examples: "Critical Coverage of Public Health and Government," "Covering Infectious Diseases," "Toxics and Risk Reporting," and chapters on writing about earth sciences, physics, astronomy and technology.
One section of the guide is devoted to writing science for colleges and universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations and business and industry.
The back of the book has sources of information that all of us who write about science should find very useful and practical, regardless of how long we've been science writers. (A very special thank-you to all who contributed information for the back of the book.) In addition to general science information sources, we have sections listing sources for astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, health and medicine, physics, and technology. Plus, there's a treasure of Internet Resources that was compiled by Frank Blanchard, Carol Morton and Richard Harris, and edited by Richard Harris who painstakingly verified web addresses by going to each one on his computer. Richard has put the list of Internet resources on the NASW web page and will keep it updated . This will be a really great service to NASW members, because the only URL you'll have to remember to get to some 60 websites of interest to science writers is this one: http://www.nasw.org.
And now, here is your advance peek into the window of A Field Guide for Science Writers.
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Mary Knudson is a freelance science writer and co-editor with Deborah Blum of A Field Guide for Science Writers. She can be reached by e-mail at Mary@nasw.org or on CompuServe at 71614.3114; fax: 301-495-0319; phone: 301-495-9379.