“Cold” equivalent potential temperature?
As scientists, we need to be precise in our writing. Evgeni Fedorovich at the University of Oklahoma has tried to keep me honest about writing about “cold temperatures”. Know that the air can be “cold” or “warm”, but temperatures are “high” or “low.” I want to take this argument one step further. It makes no […]
Past or Present Tense?
Which is correct? A. Wetzel et al. (2004) show a negative correlation between snow density and air temperature that explains 52% of the variance. B. Wetzel et al. (2004) showed a negative correlation between snow density and air temperature that explains 52% of the variance. The difference is that A uses the present tense “show”, […]
The importance of proper citation
Just recently I discovered a published article that neglected to cite the whole field of the topic that they were investigating. The article did have citations to the statistical methods and other papers that were related to their work, but not a single paper had been cited that had performed the same statistical analyses that […]
A Sharp Rise in Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform
May 20, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing
An interesting article from the New York Times about the sharp rise in retractions of published articles. Another blog post about the rise in the number of retractions and the responsible (irresponsible?) journals.
Baloney Detection Kit and brainpickings.org
This link from Bogdan Antonescu: The Baloney Detection Kit: A 10-Point Checklist for Science Literacy In fact, brainpickings.org has a lot of good posts about books, creativity, life, and writing. Enjoy surfing!
