Prof. Rob Fovell (UCLA) on PowerPoint and Teaching

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 […]

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 […]

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

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 […]

What Climategate means for scientists and their emails

The so-called Climategate scandal in which hacked emails from the University of East Anglia Center for Climate Research were released to the public is a sad day for public confidence in science. (I hesitate to use the term Climategate as the similarity with Watergate is 180 degrees opposite. Whereas the burglars in Watergate were caught […]

“Redefining the peer-review literature”

Amid all the public commentary over the stolen University of East Anglia emails, what hasn’t been as widely discussed is that ever since the internet became a tool for mass communication, scientists have been redefining what the peer-review literature is.

PowerPoint Tricks You May Not Have Heard About

Microsoft PowerPoint is so pervasive, yet discovering little tricks to assist your presentation are out there. Here is a list of the ones I find most useful or have great potential to be put to use by speakers.

Should I Write Multiple-Part Papers?

As editor and reviewer, I am often confronted by authors writing multiple-part manuscripts—linked manuscripts that have the titles something like this: “The Springfield Blizzard on 12 November 1978. Part 1: Observations” “The Springfield Blizzard on 12 November 1978. Part 2: Modeling.” These types of manuscripts rarely review well.  Reviewers typically offer suggestions on where bloated […]

Quotes from Experts on Effective Scientific Writing

When I was writing Eloquent Science, I solicited my friends and colleagues for quotes to put in the book.  I wanted the readers to get more than just my opinion about how to communicate effectively.  So, I asked the community for other tips that I might have missed.  I received more quotes than I could […]

Excerpt: Chapter 3: Writing an Effective Title

This is an excerpt from Chapter 3: Writing an Effective Title.

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