With a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and more than 12 years of experience as a science communicator, I'm an expert at helping scientists tell their science stories. If you're looking to become a more confident communicator of science, check out my newsletter!
Issue 05 - Freewriting Away From a Blank Screen
Welcome, Reader! Thanks for opening this final issue of Everyday Scicomm for 2022. To wrap up the year, I share an exercise I use to get past the paralyzing influence of a blank screen, and I review one of my very favorite guides to writing science.
Looking ahead to 2023, I'd love to know what your scicomm goals are for next year and how I can help you achieve them. Are you looking for exercises to improve your communication? More writing resources for yourself or students? Hit reply and let me know!
Overcome the Blank Screen with Freewriting
Itβs easy to get caught up in constructing the perfect sentence β editing it over and over, only to find that an hour has passed and your document has a scant 25 new words. Freewriting offers a way out.
| Read More |
Book Review - Writing Science in Plain English
If reading journal articles puts you to sleep, it's not your fault. There's an epidemic of poor writing in science, but Anne Greene will show you how to be part of the solution.
| Learn More |
From Around the Web
- βDoing the Work - How to Write When You Suck - Cory Doctorow is known primarily for his novels and activism, but his writing advice here rings true for scientists, too.
- From Twitter:
The variable for you science to have impact?
β Julius Wesche (PhD) ππ #scicomm & #energy (@JuliusWesche) December 19, 2022
The capability to create content around your research that provides value to the ones who may apply and use it. Full stop.
πͺπͺπͺ#scicomm #wisskomm
From the Archives
Viscosity may be an unfamiliar term, but it's not an unfamiliar concept for most people. In this article, I tackle the fundamentals of viscosity -- from the perspective of a fluid dynamicist -- in a way that's accessible to lay audiences.
| Read Here |
That's it for now! I'll see you again in two weeks with more scicomm tips, tricks, and inspiration. - Nicole
Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
With a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and more than 12 years of experience as a science communicator, I'm an expert at helping scientists tell their science stories. If you're looking to become a more confident communicator of science, check out my newsletter!
Hi, Reader! This year my summer calendar has a massive question mark hanging over it. That's not, in my experience, conducive to steady, quality writing each week. So I've decided to put the blog and this newsletter on a hiatus until life gets a little more certain. I expect to return in a couple months with lots more to say and share about communicating science. In the meantime, though, I leave you with another edition of "Fixed It For You" - this time powered by ChatGPT. Or rather, inspired...
Hi, Reader! Whether you like them or loathe them, we all have to deal with time and word limits at some point. In this issue, I take a look at the questions you should ask yourself anytime you're operating with one of these constraints. And because we all sometimes have budget constraints, too, I share some of my secrets for finding free, royalty-free images, video footage, music, and sound effects. I hope they'll help you dress up your presentations, videos, and research posters without...
Hi, Reader! Since I was asked a few weeks ago to prepare a five-minute, no-slides talk for Fellows of the Royal Society, I've had constraints on the brain. I feel like we scientists and engineers love to complain about time limits and word counts and just not having enough space for our voices and ideas. But the more I thought about constraints in other contexts, like art, the more I realized that constraints are, in fact, a good thing to have. And not just for the audience or conference...