The Importance of Thinking Before Writing

I was helping a student with a paper he was writing. He said a lot of interesting things, just not being very effective at what he was trying to convey. Here was my advice to him. If you can write down 1–3 bulleted sentences that convey your principal results or points that you want to […]

Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism Policy

Recently, I had the opportunity to help develop a policy for plagiarism and self-plagiarism for the journals of the American Meteorological Society. That policy was published in the February 2015 issues of the various journals. Although the policy for plagiarism was perhaps not too surprising, the policy on self-plagiarism is, as far as I can […]

Is the university seminar dying?

When I reminisce about the educational experiences that most prepared me for a career in academia, attending the weekly seminar series was one of the more important influences. I had the opportunity to be exposed to such seminars at a number of different universities and research laboratories throughout my career, and they served similar purposes. […]

Cleveland Abbe’s “The Teacher and the Student” (1909)

This short essay was published in Monthly Weather Review in January 1909, as part of the Summary of 1908 (p. 453). The text is copied verbatim, including what we would now recognize as non-gender-neutral language and grammatical errors. THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENT The good work that is done in meteorology is often accomplished by […]

Godwin’s Law for Emails to Journal Editors

“…there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.” – Wikipedia entry for Godwin’s Law I am proposing a corollary: Godwin’s Law for Emails to Journal Editors. If […]

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