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 09 - Tools For Writing
Hey, Reader! I hope you're doing well this Valentine's week. My Monday started off quite frenetic, but I'm hoping for a bit of a lull mid-week so that I can build out some time to concentrate and write.
Writing is also the big topic of this issue's posts, one of which focuses on how to use writing samples to improve your work. The second post looks a bit more at my own writing process and the tools I use in writing. Are you a single word processor kind of writer, or do you have a whole toolbox you choose from? Hit reply and let me know!
Five Questions to Ask When Writing From Samples
You found someone kind enough to share their fellowship application or grant proposal, but now what? These questions will help you identify the best aspects of your writing sample and how to apply those lessons to your own work.
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The Tools I Use to Write
Continuing my tradition of revealing what goes on in my own writing process, I take a look at some of the many programs and tools I use when writing.
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From Around the Web
- Productivity Mistakes That Researchers Make - Here's a helpful Twitter thread deconstructing some of the common mistakes academics make around writing and productivity.
- How America's Big Science Literacy Mistake is Coming Back to Haunt Us - This essay asks what science literacy truly is and how we can foster it in our society.
- Be Skeptical of Influencers - Even Science Communicators - No one is immune to the influences of money, as this story reminds us.
From the Archives
In this article for Funsize Physics, I tackled the peculiar behaviors of many common fluids, like ketchup, oobleck, and toothpaste.
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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...