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 12 - Completing the Hero's Journey
Hi, Reader! Are you ready to finish out the Hero's Journey series? Today's newsletter includes my last (planned) post for the series. But if you have questions -- or want to see more -- just let me know!
With the series wrapped, I turned my sights back to my bookshelf and some of the tools that sit there, ready to help me write effective and engaging science. This time I picked up Storycraft, a writing book so helpful to me that I re-read it every year or two. This last time around, I imported my notes into Readwise, so now I get reminders of my favorite quotes every few days. It's a great way to keep useful information near the top of my mind.
The Hero's Journey, Part 4: Concept-Driven Nonfiction
In science, our focus is often on a concept instead of a specific character. But, even so, the Hero's Journey has you covered. See how to follow the Hero's Journey with a concept in this final post of the series.
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Book Review - Storycraft
Following the Hero's Journey format is one of my favorite tools for communicating science, but this book is another of my secret weapons.
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From Around the Web
- Science Talk '23 - The Association of Science Communicators has their annual conference coming up in both live (April 6-7) and virtual (March 29 - April 7) formats. Check out their schedule here.
- Dr. Edward C. Alexander Science Communication Award - This new award, offered by the Black in Cancer network, is intended to help support PhD students, including those enrolled internationally. Deadline is April 25.
From the Archives
"Paint is probably the Internet's second favorite non-Newtonian fluid to vibrate on a speaker." Sometimes a droll line catches a journalist's attention. Here's an article from The Atlantic inspired by one of my 2013 FYFD posts.
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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...