The “secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!”

The lyrics from sing365.com. For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to stea… to adapt this idea to the field […]

Eloquent Science: Chapter 11 Figures

I received a request from a professor who uses Eloquent Science in the classroom. He wanted the figures from Chapter 11: Figures and Tables, so that he could adapt them into his own presentations. In response to that request, here they are, in a single PowerPoint file: Eloquent Science: Figures from Chapter 11

Junk the Jargon Interview on Public Engagement

An oldie, but goodie. Here is an interview (Junkcast) I did for the University of Manchester Junk the Jargon competition. I talk about my own experiences good and bad with public engagement, tips for connecting with the audience, and the origins of Eloquent Science.

Would it surprise you that the thesaurus was written by an obsessive person?

Peter Roget, who wrote Roget’s Thesaurus, came from a family of mental instability: “His grandmother was mentally unstable, his mother was nearly psychotic and his sister and daughter had suffered severe mental breakdowns (Cracked.com, 2012)” But, he loved to make lists. After 12 years of making lists of all words and their relationship to each […]

Microsoft Word grammar checker FAIL: “A climatology”

Have you every seen that the automatic grammar checker in Microsoft Word flags “a climatology” as incorrect? I checked that “a climatological study” does not trigger the green underline, nor does “climatology” without the article “a”. Maybe it is some kind of check to see if someone says “a biology” not followed by a noun […]

The Golden Rule of Reviewing, applied to grant proposals

A colleague of mine wrote me a while back, I liked your blog entry on the golden rule of reviewing, but I wanted to see if you have thoughts (or know of similar research) regarding the review process for proposals to agencies. It comes to mind because I served on my first [funding agency] panel […]

Even Eloquent Science bloggers get rejected. ;-)

The title of this post relates to my post about our university president having her paper rejected. Recently I was informed that a paper that I was coauthor on that we submitted to Nature Geoscience was rejected. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the paper was at least considered for a […]

The Importance of a Clearly Written and Complete Caption

I never tire of this analogy. For the answer, click here. From Style for Students by Joe Schall.

Why the acknowledgements are important

This recent slate.com article discusses the increasing prevalance of the acknowledgements section in books. It got me thinking about acknowledgements in scientific papers. Some authors use them, others don’t. Some authors thank the reviewers; others don’t. Some authors even thank the Editor; others don’t. Every once in a while you’ll find authors using weather graphics […]

Storm chaser, no. Meteorologist, yes.

The death of four storm chasers in the recent Oklahoma tornado raises issues about the safety of stormchasing, but also how stormchasing is marketed to the public and students. For example, some undergraduate meteorology, environmental science, and geography programs use storm chasing as a tool to market their programs. Even MyMajors.com lists stormchaser as a […]

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