Speaking Science to the Public
A while back, I was asked about the type of guidance that I would provide someone who wanted to communicate to the public via their National Hydrometeorological Service’s Web page. The book I most highly recommend is “Don’t Be Such a Scientist”. The author definitely has an American way of writing, so nonnative American English […]
“Blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now.”
Here are some prime quotes from an interview with Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson of the London School of Economics Public Policy Group about why scientists are obliged to communicate with those who live in the real world (not academics). But in addition, social scientists have an obligation to society to contribute their observations to […]
Teller on Communicating Science
No, not Edward Teller, but Teller of the magic act Penn and Teller. The Smithsonian magazine’s March 2012 issue has an article written by Teller, available online. In the article, Teller explains seven principles for how magicians convince the audience of the trick. After reading them, I think many could be equally applied to convincing […]
The Boycott of Elsevier
February 27, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing, Reviewing
As pointed out by Chris Fairless in the comments on a recent blog post of mine, a movement has started to boycott Elsevier because of their aggressive business practices that hurt libraries and restrict information. The petition is called http://thecostofknowledge.com/ and started with a blog post here. You can take a stand by signing up […]
For those who love reading and writing books…
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won the Oscar for Best Animated Short last night. Enjoy!
The politicization of the scientific publishing process
February 25, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing
On one topic, Congress seemed to be moving in the right direction. Over the past few years, emphasis was placed on making the research that taxpayers funded open access—in other words, free for all to view. According to a recent article by Wired, a bill called the Research Works Act introduced by Reps Carolyn Maloney […]
A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper
February 9, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Humor, Publishing
Paul Roebber sent me this hilarious letter written by a frustrated author to the Editor. Enjoy! Glass, R. L., 2000: A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper. The Journal of Systems and Software, 54, 1. [PDF] Image from http://lightsallaround.wordpress.com/author/jackieleasommers/
The decreasing number of studies with negative results
February 8, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing
When I lived in Oklahoma, Chuck Doswell used to lament to me that it was difficult to publish null cases in meteorology (for example, when something was forecast to happen, but didn’t). Later, when talking to Roseanne McNamee at the University of Manchester, she lamented the same. There are even several journals for negative results: […]
Even the University President gets rejected
From the weekly update by University of Manchester President and Vice Chancellor Dame Nancy J. Rothwell, DBE, FRS: I had some bad news on the research publication front, my research group had a great paper rejected by completely unreasonable referees – they were obviously biased – or at least we think so. More work to […]
Collaborative research
Matt Bunkers forwarded me this article from the New York Times about collaborative research in science and how social networking and other collaborations are resulting in new scientific progress at a faster rate. I had seen the Michael Nielsen quoted in the article speak at the University of Manchester back in September. It was an […]
