Reporting From Science Journals
Review of an article by Tom Siegfried, from the book “A Field Guide for Science Writers”
Tom Siegfried, in his article, discusses the idea of Science Writing with a completely new perspective. He highlights the main challenges faced by science writers, with interesting analogies from the real world.
To start with, he highlights the importance of reading for being good at writing, and while reading, one needs to be selective. The eye-catching subtitles used rightly depict the author’s creative mind. The Journal Menu talks about the “Big Four”. This is a set of four major peer-reviewed journals: Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of American Medical Association. These journals are considered regular and some of the best sources of Science news. But aren’t there already so many sources of science news? Let’s know more about this in the following paragraph.
Writing a science article needs effort plus some preparation beforehand. It can either be original research work or a review of somebody else’s research. An important part of this preparation is verifying the facts for their authenticity. There are numerous sources of news all over the internet. Trusting them blindly is never a good idea. Stating incorrect facts is the worst mistake a science writer can make. Your readers trust you for your work and take more interest in your writings when they relate to them. Hence, weaving it in the form of a story makes it way more interesting. The way you start grabs most of the attention of the reader. From my own experience as a reader, I feel that it’s human behavior to judge an article from the way it starts, and if it feels boring, we lose interest then and there. And that’s why peer-reviewing is one of the most important aspects of science writing. Constructive criticism often brings out the best in you. After all, it is the audience that matters. Limiting our work to ourselves limits its perspective and the scope of improvement.
Hence, Science Writing is not as easy as it seems! There’s a lot of work from the backend. A good science article is a beautiful mix of the writer’s knowledge, and creativity with a tinge of imagination required to make it worth reading.
