... into words: mastering the craft of science writing / Elise Hancock.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8 018 -7329-0 — ISBN 0-8 018 -7330-4
1. Technical writing. I. Title.
T 11 .H255 2003
808′.0665—dc 21 2002 011 065
A catalog ... ix
Acknowledgments xvii
1. A Matter of Attitude 1
2. Finding Stories 29
3. Finding Out: Research and the Interview 45
4. Writing: Getting Started and the Struc...
... education, or interest in it.
Science writers and editors needn’t start off knowing
much science. Some of the best of them do, but some of the
best of them don’t. They must, though, be able to ... today about writing, espe-
cially writing about science, medicine, and other difficult
subjects, I learned then. Others did, too. Those who came to
see the ceaseless flow of red...
... the ma-
A Matter of Attitude
Only connect.
—E. M. Forster,
Howards End
terial as they do with the readers. Indeed, their curiosity and
its fruits are a large part of what the reader senses, of ... always have the reader in mind, not only as they write
but also in the finding out that comes before. They do
their research with integrity, digging deep, and they write
with the...
... parties,
people often tell me that they have decided they want to be
writers, and they’ll get started as soon as they have more
time, or when they have their study fixed up, or when they
get a new ... of Being that in
turn gives rise to appropriate Doing.
You can spot the best mentors, like the best parents and
the best shrinks, because their former protégés are out there
doing the w...
... on.
Another whole class of story ideas arrives from the other
direction: from outside the world of research, in the form
of a question, observation, or piece of news.To under-
stand the phenomenon then ... that, on the day after Sep-
tember 11 , 20 01, his taste in music changed. “I always had
the car radio on a rock station,” he said. Then the day after
the Twin Towe...
... needs. For example: the
Insured, the Uninsured, the Doctor, the Insurance Company,
the Taxpayer, the Hospital, the Residents and Medical Stu-
dents, the Medical Teachers, the Makers of Medical Parapher-
nalia ... Each party brings special expertise
to the table .The science writer knows how to translate
science for the public, while the scientist knows the sci...
... Guaranteed, there must have
been other ways to approach the issue, so what was the advan-
tage of this one? The answers are always part of a larger pic-
ture, about either the science or the research ... folks, too. The
researcher will not mind. In fact, the better the scientific
team, the more the leaders seem to want to credit the junior
Research
and the
Inter...
... inter-
views, the machine took enough attention that my rapport
with the other person suffered, plus I often lost track of the
content. The problem is that, when I’m typing at the speed
of speech, the ... questions and find out the
answers; you ponder some more.
A period of wandering in a formless void is necessary to
any writing of substance, simply as part of achi...
... people write the body of the text first and save the
opener to write last, to benefit from all the clarity that the
writing brought. If that works for you, great.
Others find (and I am one of them) that ... paintbrush.
Yes, but the next morning you do the whole job in three
hours, and there’s no need to razor the windows or scrub
paint off the floor. And it’s the same wa...
... magnifi-
cent island.”
Then I considered the essay’s title: The Island at the End
of the Earth.” Hmm. In many seagoing cultures, the islands
at the end of the world are where the dead and dying ... is the symmetry so clear at
opening and close. The reader enters and leaves this universe
of words at the same place, pulled through the duration of
the trip by a we...