Want quick publicity? Send out a press release on your unpublished manuscript!
January 24, 2014 Filed under Blog, Featured, Potpourri, Publishing
As this article from slate.com describes, yet again someone has received a lot of media attention for their unpublished research. This time the study was on the eventual decline of Facebook. The slate article does a fine job of undermining the premises of the paper and showing them not to be valid (particularly the one […]
Lee Grenci is mad as hell about the use of “polar vortex” in the media.
He’s not taking it anymore. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/worldofweather/node/2098
Sell no manuscript before its time
January 18, 2014 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing, Writing
This classic TV advertisement from the late 1970s features Orson Welles proclaiming that Paul Masson winery will not sell its wine until it is ready. Unfortunately, many authors “sell” their manuscript to journals before they are ready to enter peer review. The manuscripts are often sloppy, lacking careful proofreading. References are not in the proper […]
More on plain writing in the government
Regular reader Brian Curran sends us this link on the Plain Writing Act and the results thereof, following up on earlier discussions of clear language in government writing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/11/19/plain-writing-in-government-agencies-plainly-speaking-arent-there-yet/ As the report card from the Center for Plain Language shows, NOAA gets a D for “Plain Writing”, although which documents were used was not stated […]
Tornadoes and the “Clash of the Air Masses”
Ever seen media reports talk about how tornadoes form in the central United States? It always seems to start with warm air from the south meeting cold air from the north. Need some examples? How about these? USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/08/oklahoma-tornadoes-ef5-moore/2401885/ The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tornado-disaster-clash-of-air-masses-in-tornado-alley-1091490.html KTBC Fox News, Austin, Texas: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/21871999/weather-facts-tornado-rotation The BBC: National Geographic: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/biggest-storm/tornado-formation I […]
Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims
This Comment in Nature today by William Sutherland, David Spiegelhalter, and Mark Burgman is meant as a primer for policy makers who need to interpret science, but I would argue that this primer is also useful for scientists who might fall into this trap of overinterpreting or misinterpreting results in their own or others’ studies. […]
Epic Fail: What a Perfectly Putrid Poster Can Do for You
Nice article in Eos by Paul Cooper and Julia Galkiewicz who define a PPP (Perfectly Putrid Poster).
From the “You’ve Got to Be Kidding” Category…
I wonder if these authors chose this title, just to get the attention. Anyway, here it is.
Interview with Scientia Crastina
I did this great interview with Olle Bergman who runs the web page Scientia Crastina, which bills itself as “communication skills for the scientists of tomorrow”. Thanks, Olle! Readers, I hope you enjoy the interview. I had fun answering the questions that Olle posed for me!
Teaching Quantum Physics to Children: Ellie the Electron
Ellie the Electron is a children’s story about an electron who wants to be the star of the show. It was written by Dr. Yvette Hancock, a lecturer in Physics at the University of York. Yvette has done many outreach activities to promote physics to students (such as her Institute of Physics lecture at the […]
