How to be a more effective reviewer

As part of its 150th anniversary celebrations, Monthly Weather Review published my editorial “How to be a more effective reviewer”. The editorial has four sections: receiving the invitation, writing the review, after the initial review, and communicating with the editor. It provides guidance for first-time reviewers, but also experienced reviewers, to help make your reviews […]

Eliminate excessive and unnecessary acronyms from your scientific writing

Source: https://sspinnovations.com/blog/know-your-gis-and-non-gis-abbreviations-acronyms-and-initialisms/ I can’t say that there was a specific moment when I noticed it happening more often. Either it is increasing in frequency or it is testing my patience more these days. That is the tendency for authors to introduce numerous and unnecessary acronyms in their manuscripts. These authors abbreviate phrases, geographical locations, and […]

Chinese translation of Eloquent Science now available

Thanks to the hard work of colleagues, there is a Chinese-language translation of Eloquent Science now available. A huge thank you to translators Haijiang Kong, Yan Han, Feimiao Zhao, M. Song, and Jidong Gao, who worked hard over many years to get this out. I am especially grateful to Haijiang who was the one who […]

How Bill Paxton Helped Us Understand Tornadoes in Europe

Today I learned that Bill Paxton died at the age of 61. I never met him, although I knew people who had met him during the filming of Twister. He was said to be friendly and curious about the science on set. Many meteorologists of a certain age group are likely in this career because […]

Publishing Academic Papers Workshop

If you are at the University of Manchester, you can sign up to attend my day-long workshop called “Publishing Academic Papers”. It runs 5-6 times a year. The complete workshop schedule can be found here. This workshop covers: Why publish? How do I publish? How do peer review, editors, and journals work? Is my science […]

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”, […]

Rejected for publication: What now?

So, your manuscript was rejected? Before you start firebombing the editor’s place of work and writing screeds on your blog, consider the following. Put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes. It may be hard to do so, but it is often the best way to understand what the reviewer is trying to communicate. If the reviewer […]

Thermodynamic diagrams for free

Upon packing up my house in Oklahoma, I discovered a small stash of Skew T–logp thermodynamic diagrams that I had saved when Charlie Crisp cleaned out his office at NSSL. (I also have a huge stash of blank U.S. surface maps, in case anyone is interested in them.) Geraint Vaughan at Manchester had been lamenting […]

Are first-person pronouns acceptable in scientific writing?

One of the most common questions I get is whether it is acceptable to use “we” or “I” in a scientific paper. “We” or “I” are first-person pronouns. Many professors tell their students not to use first-person pronouns in their writing, instead preferring a more passive tone. Instead of “We speculate that…”, these professors prefer […]

Do you end with a ‘thank you’ or ‘questions?’ slide?

If you do, you are wasting a valuable opportunity to leave your audience with your take-home message. Of course, you should express your appreciation to your audience by thanking them for their attention, but I am not impressed by a speaker who thinks that a slide is the way to express such sincerity. Likewise, everyone […]

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