Scott Adams on criticism
This quote could be applied to the review process… “If there is one thing you should always seek in a job, it’s the opportunity to criticize people who are more skilled than you are. This kind of work is both satisfying and easy.” —Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert
Bob The Angry Flower: It’s vs Its
A great title (Bryan 2005)
March 20, 2010 Filed under Blog, Potpourri, Uncategorized, Writing
I was recently reminded of this paper by my colleague George Bryan. Bryan, G. H., 2005: Spurious convective organization in simulated squall lines owing to moist absolutely unstable layers. Mon. Wea. Rev., 133, 1978–1997. I love this title. This title has all of Lipton’s five characteristics of an effective title. Informative The title has all […]
Prof. Rob Fovell (UCLA) on PowerPoint and Teaching
March 20, 2010 Filed under Blog, Featured, Potpourri, Presentations
I do not use PowerPoint in class. PowerPoint is virtually a necessity for scientific talks, but I think they often hurt classroom lectures. They lock me into a particular order, and they tend to make me go through material too fast. My handwriting is poor, but I write in class so I don’t go too […]
Correct use of the Kelvin temperature scale
March 14, 2010 Filed under Blog, Potpourri, Presentations, Writing
Prof. Terence Day at Okanagan College, British Columbia, recently wrote an article describing the errors in textbooks. He argues that, “If the discipline of physical geography is a genuine natural science then the internationally recognized scientific units must be correctly used.” The issue is the Kelvin temperature scale. At the General Conference on Weights and […]
The Importance of Good Communication – Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator
You’ve probably heard me say how much I value communications, both for the advancement of science and the good of our society. Good communication, at the most basic level, can unify us. It strengthens our democracy and creates an environment of transparency and trust. Good communication is essential for science. By translating complex science into […]
The range of reviewer recommendations from crocs to pigeons
March 4, 2010 Filed under Blog, Humor, Potpourri, Reviewing, Uncategorized
Explains the evolutionary line of Rejectosaurus. From the A(frican) Blog of Ecology by Raf Aerts: “I’ve just spotted a Revisosaurus major on one of my manuscripts, even though the field characteristics were very close to those of a Rejectosaurus resubmittens (see Fig. 1, blue line).”
Bob the Angry Flower speaks out against improper apostrophe use
Or, in color: Buy the poster here!
Recommended Reading
Previously, I provided three items of essential reading. Here are other books that I highly recommend for improving your scientific communication skills. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING ON WRITING Cook (1986): Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing delivers a thorough accounting of the editing process. The book deals mainly with sentence-level revisions and contains […]
Communicating Your Ideas-NERC
January 28, 2010 Filed under Blog, Featured, Potpourri, Resources, Uncategorized
I was recently awarded a grant from NERC (UK Natural Environment Research Council) along with two colleagues at the University of Manchester. I was impressed on several fronts. 1) I believe one of the reasons that the proposal was funded was because of the strong “impacts” section that we wrote where we would convey our […]