Can you list acknowledgements in your CV?

From reader Ivan comes this question: “I would like to hear your comments about the practice of mentioning people in the Acknowledgement section of the reviewed papers. E.g. Can acknowledged person add this information in its CV? My impression is that this would motivate people to assist their peers more often and relax some of […]

Are students prepared for university-level writing?

Kim Brooks has this essay “Death to High School English” published in Salon.com. She details her experiences with finding students who don’t know the basics of writing: composition, structure, thesis statements, grammar, punctuation, and plagiarism. My own experiences here in the UK with final-year environmental-science majors were remarkably similar to hers, so the problem isn’t […]

The need for communication skills in the meteorological private sector

In 1995, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) conducted a survey of the private sector members of the AMS. The results, published in the Bulletin of the AMS, substantiate the importance of teaching communication skills in colleges and universities. The top three jobs performed by the professional meteorologists were broadcasting, general consulting, and weather information/communications. The […]

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