Government Guidelines for Concise and Clear Writing

Brian Curran sends me this article in Government Executive called “8 Tips to Improve Your (And Your Agency’s) Writing”. This guidance comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, who recently developed a Writing Style Guide. You can download this 114-page PDF here. After those 8 tips, the author provides this Pop Quiz. Pop Quiz: Which […]

The Importance of Not Being Cited

This title comes from a 1973 paper in Current Contents by Eugene Garfield called “Uncitedness III—The Importance of Not Being Cited”. In there, Garfield talks about three reasons why papers may not be cited. I. “the uncitedness of the mediocre, the unintelligible, the irrelevant, the eccentric.” II. “the uncitedness of the meritorious but undiscovered or […]

How to determine authorship order quantitatively

Feuding coauthors on your paper? Petty arguments about who did more work? Colleagues whining because you didn’t include them in the author list of your latest Nature paper? I recently discovered the following paper, which reminded me of several articles that produce a quantitative approach to determining author order. Authorship of scientific articles within an […]

Communicating low-probability events

The authors start by asking, “What is the best way to communicate the risk of rare but extreme weather to the public?” Through a role-playing game where students pretended to be in charge of a road-salting operation, LeClerc and Joslyn (2012) found that the students were more likely to salt when receiving forecasts of temperatures […]

A note on good research practice: Dooley (2013)

An editorial in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control is entitled “A note on good research practice.” Dooley states: By far the most common issue we editors of this journal are seeing in terms of poor scientific practice in submissions is the failure to appropriately cite the work of others. Sadly, we see numerous […]

A subjective discussion of the meanings of “subjective” and “objective”

Scientists are objective. Personal bias is not acceptable and interpretation that is subject to the observer is frowned upon. The above statement is the ideal to which we presumably strive to attain as scientists. The reality that we construct in our research is independent of the person doing the research. So, when someone performs some […]

Why study duck penises?

If you ever needed an eloquent argument for funding basic science, please read this excellent editorial by Patricia Brennan. A particular highlight: Investment in the NSF [National Science Foundation, the U.S. government agency that funds scientific research] is just over $20 per year per person, while it takes upward of $2,000 per year per person […]

Scientists need “adequate communication skills”

…we should focus on equipping Earth scientists with adequate communication skills, and heighten their understanding of how their words … will be perceived. So says the Editorial “Communication at Risk” in the February 2013 issue of Nature Geoscience about the L’Aquila earthquake trial. I couldn’t agree more. Thanks to Martin Gallagher for pointing out this […]

Prescient Poem about Writing for Publication

Writing for the AMS [American Meteorological Society] George W. Mindling Official in Charge, Weather Bureau Office Atlanta, Georgia, March 29, 1939 Did you ever write a paper for the AMS In a Weather Bureau office without great distress While the sky was dark and gloomy with a threat of coming rain And the phone was […]