“This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.”

As a reviewer and an editor, I occasionally see an author respond to a reviewer comment with the above response: “This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.” This response has always bothered me, but I didn’t know why. After thinking about it recently, now I know … read more

Take the Pledge: I Won’t Use Map-room Jargon!

If you regularly attend discussions in the weather-map room, subscribe to weather or storm-chaser discussion lists, or have reviewed articles for Weather, Monthly Weather Review, National Weather Digest, or Weather and Forecasting, then you have been exposed to it. Map-room jargon. Often the speakers of map-room jargon don’t even know what they are doing. (I … read more

One space or two?

Russ Schumacher and I have been discussing the current online battle between those who advocate one space between sentences and two spaces. The debate started with Slate’s Farhad Manjoo, then was picked up by The Atlantic, citing Tom Lee. I have to admit that my typing instructor in seventh grade taught us to use two … read more

Take the Poll: Color Schemes in Presentations

In Eloquent Science (p. 279), I made the argument that light-colored text on dark-colored backgrounds was preferable to dark-colored text on light-colored backgrounds for three reasons. 1. Red lasers (especially if the laser light is weak) may not show up well on white backgrounds. 2. Slides with white backgrounds lose contrast if the room is … read more