On “Breaking the Rules”

The more I lecture on the importance of good communication and the more I point people to what I think are good scientific communication styles, the last thing I would want would be for some people to take these recommendations too seriously. Although I seem to offer such “rules” in my book, in my workshops, […]

Whether to use colons in titles

In Eloquent Science, I discuss my thoughts about colons in titles of scientific articles on pp. 24-25, but only briefly. Dave Mechem (University of Kansas) emailed me to express concern about their overuse in some disciplines like geography, humanities, and some of the social sciences. For an example, take a look at this issue of […]

A great title (Bryan 2005)

I was recently reminded of this paper by my colleague George Bryan. Bryan, G. H., 2005: Spurious convective organization in simulated squall lines owing to moist absolutely unstable layers. Mon. Wea. Rev., 133, 1978–1997. I love this title. This title has all of Lipton’s five characteristics of an effective title. Informative The title has all […]

Prof. Rob Fovell (UCLA) on PowerPoint and Teaching

I do not use PowerPoint in class. PowerPoint is virtually a necessity for scientific talks, but I think they often hurt classroom lectures. They lock me into a particular order, and they tend to make me go through material too fast. My handwriting is poor, but I write in class so I don’t go too […]

Correct use of the Kelvin temperature scale

Prof. Terence Day at Okanagan College, British Columbia, recently wrote an article describing the errors in textbooks. He argues that, “If the discipline of physical geography is a genuine natural science then the internationally recognized scientific units must be correctly used.” The issue is the Kelvin temperature scale. At the General Conference on Weights and […]

Appropriate way to label axes of graphs

Prof. Brian Fiedler of the University of Oklahoma recently published an article in Physics Education calling for a change in direction in teaching dimensionless ratios in physics. As he advocates, The tick marks [on an axis of a graph] are pure numbers. Labels with a solidus such as R/µm are orthodox notation for what the […]

The Importance of Good Communication – Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator

You’ve probably heard me say how much I value communications, both for the advancement of science and the good of our society. Good communication, at the most basic level, can unify us. It strengthens our democracy and creates an environment of transparency and trust. Good communication is essential for science. By translating complex science into […]

The range of reviewer recommendations from crocs to pigeons

Explains the evolutionary line of Rejectosaurus. From the A(frican) Blog of Ecology by Raf Aerts: “I’ve just spotted a Revisosaurus major on one of my manuscripts, even though the field characteristics were very close to those of a Rejectosaurus resubmittens (see Fig. 1, blue line).”