Quick Guide to Writing a Solid Peer Review

Nicholas and Gordon, writing in EOS, offer up one of the best summaries of how to write a peer review I’ve read. Download that article from here.

“This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.”

As a reviewer and an editor, I occasionally see an author respond to a reviewer comment with the above response: “This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.” This response has always bothered me, but I didn’t know why. After thinking about it recently, now I know […]

Scientific Manuscript Editing Services

In my experience as editor, rarely do I reject a manuscript solely because of improper use of the English language (usually from authors who are non-native English speakers, although not entirely). Many rejected manuscripts have this problem, however, so poorly written manuscripts contribute to the author being unable to convince reviewers that their research is […]

Finding common ground with climate-change contrarians

This article by Prof. Scott Denning from Colorado State University was published in the UCAR Magazine. He offers three pieces of wisdom for interacting with audiences who may be hostile. 1. Begin from common ground. 2. Engage the audience on a human level. 3. Emphasize the basics. Denning argues that our inability to interact with […]

Is it in your nature to use “nature” in your scientific writing?

Some authors have a habit of using the word “nature” commonly in their writing. I suspect that they don’t even think about it. It just seems, well, natural. In fact, the word is empty of meaning in many contexts. “cumuliform nature”: “the cauliflower-like visual appearance of convective clouds” “nature of the convection”: What do you […]

The proliferation of scientific literature

For some perspective on my previous post about the growing number of online open-access journals, I was reminded today of an article by Brian Vickery (1999) describing the development and explosion of the scientific literature during the 1900s. That article discussed the fact that many scientists were already overwhelmed by the huge amount of scientific […]

Potential Temperature: Warm and Cold?

Does it make sense to talk about air with high values of potential temperature or equivalent potential temperature as warm or cold? I don’t think so, so I recommend talking about “air with higher or lower potential temperature” instead. Although it is wordier than warm or cold, the meaning is precise.

Eloquent Science 4-GB flashdrives

I have these nifty Eloquent Science 4-GB flashdrives for sale. They cost £10/€15/$15 if you see me in person, or add £3/€5/$6 for postage. The drive comes preloaded with lots of great resources: • Excerpts and outtakes from Eloquent Science • 21 direct links to online resources • 61 articles specifically designed to help develop […]

Thermodynamic diagrams for free

Upon packing up my house in Oklahoma, I discovered a small stash of Skew T–logp thermodynamic diagrams that I had saved when Charlie Crisp cleaned out his office at NSSL. (I also have a huge stash of blank U.S. surface maps, in case anyone is interested in them.) Geraint Vaughan at Manchester had been lamenting […]

How science progresses (a cynical viewpoint)

This is one of the most hilarious movies I’ve seen about how science works (or doesn’t work, as the case may be). Although it is a discussion between two physicists, you can imagine your favorite subdisciplines in your own field interacting this way.

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