“Have Your Cake and Communicate Better, Too”
December 21, 2009 Filed under News
From the American Meteorological Society blog: In the modern world of text messages, Tweets, and, yes, blogs, it’s easy for the craft of writing to be overlooked for the sake of immediacy, shock value, or just plain laziness. Indeed, time for eloquence increasingly seems like a luxury as technology makes communication more convenient and commonplace. […]
What Climategate means for scientists and their emails
The so-called Climategate scandal in which hacked emails from the University of East Anglia Center for Climate Research were released to the public is a sad day for public confidence in science. (I hesitate to use the term Climategate as the similarity with Watergate is 180 degrees opposite. Whereas the burglars in Watergate were caught […]
Hot under the collar about “hot temperatures”
The December 2009 issue of the journal Weather published by the Royal Meteorological Society has a letter by David Pedgley, referring to a 2005 letter by Malcolm Walker, which refers to an earlier letter by John Cook. At issue? “Hot temperatures.” Read an excerpt from Pedgley’s letter: Temperature is a measure of the heat content […]
“Redefining the peer-review literature”
Amid all the public commentary over the stolen University of East Anglia emails, what hasn’t been as widely discussed is that ever since the internet became a tool for mass communication, scientists have been redefining what the peer-review literature is.
How to buy a signed copy of the book
The fastest way to get the book in the United States is by ordering through the American Meteorological Society. The book is now ready to ship, and I have heard that people have received their copies relatively timely. If you want me to send you a copy personally, I am happy to do so and […]
Advertising flier for Eloquent Science
December 7, 2009 Filed under News
If you are interested in posting a flier in your institution or department to help advertise Eloquent Science, I would greatly appreciate it. Those who do so can get some nifty Eloquent Science bookmarks to distribute as well. Please email me at eloquentscience@gmail.com for more information. Eloquent Science Poster
Redundancy in scientific writing
You may remember an elementary or middle school English teacher urging you to vary the vocabulary in your writing. I have a very strong memory of that from my youth. Such strict lessons from an early age may be difficult to break, but scientific writing does not have to be like prose writing for English […]
Errata: Figure 19.1
Please replace Fig. 19.1 on p. 227 with the correct version below. I had inadvertently used an earlier version of the figure that Dave Whiteman supplied, and this error slipped past both his and my readings of the page proofs.
What Writing This Book Taught Me
[DMS: This was going to be a sidebar in the last chapter of Eloquent Science, but we decided upon removing it to shorten the text. Remarkably personal, this text shows the struggles that I had to go through to deliver text I was happy with (or at least satisfied with).] 14 March 2008: Mary Golden […]
The shortest title ever written
I discovered this article while browsing on the Web site of Rutgers University mathematician Doron Zeilberger. Among his voluminous Web page (we’re talking Doswell-level voluminous), I came across this page. The article came about when Prof. Zeilberger was asked to give a talk to the Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the Rutgers Math Department. […]
