Woot

I just submitted my portfolio, yay. It consists of my Profile and Feature, because I work at a newspaper and edit, revise, and sometimes write more articles per week than any sane person should have to (people who work at daily newspapers are clearly insane). Plus, I like people and my Profile and Feature were both interview-based and thus way more interesting to write. They feel more relevant to me. And I think they turned out well.

I have always enjoyed writing personal reflections, as I find out that I know/learned stuff I didn't know that I know/learned before writing. I also always end up writing weird stuff, so I might as well continue that trend in this even-more-informal-than-the-reflective-preface blog post. Probably nobody will read it except Doug, anyway.

This class was sort of a trip in which I was a little lost and confused wandering through it but then at the end all of the deep meaning snuck up from behind and hit me in the face. And then I was like, "Whoa, trippy, dude. I like, learned stuff."

So I guess you could say it was a success.

I had fun formatting my final portfolio pieces in InDesign, writing looks so much cooler when it has pictures and neat boundaries and not double-spaced Times New Roman 12-point font. It's like you can forget about what the writing says and just enjoy the aesthetic quality of it. I also drew a cartoon for one and a rudimentary diagram for the other, which was fun. It turns out I can do art stuff too!

As far as the actual writing, though, I'm not sure what I can say that's not obvious, so here's my ideology: A piece of writing is never finished, and if you let some time pass in between writing and revising you can always improve it. Nothing is perfect on the first draft, and it always improves when more people read it and provide feedback.

For that, I'd like to shout out to my writing group for having my back, especially Michelle for reading my Feature when I finally finished it over a week late and giving me feedback the same night that I uploaded a draft to D2L.

The writing in my portfolio is by no means perfect, but it's better than it was before.

I will continue to pursue science-y writing, I'm sure. I had a good time learning stuff in this class. It's been a good trip, dude.

Portfolio revision plans

Considering how much time has passed since we wrote the News Brief and the Interview/Profile, it makes the most sense to me to revise those two. After not thinking about them for a while, I plan to return to them with my "editor hat" on, so to speak — I'm not attached to the words I wrote because I don't really remember them precisely, so I can go in there objectively and change a bunch of stuff.

The News Brief revision will most likely involve re-ordering the information in there and highlighting the most interesting "newsy" things in it, as well as tweaking the wording to be more precise and/or interesting.

The Profile revision should be interesting, because after writing my initial draft and receiving feedback from my peers I re-wrote the entire thing. But even after that, it's not that great. I struggled writing it because I didn't feel I had the authority to write such a thing after a half-hour conversation in which I probably asked the wrong questions and looked like an idiot, so basically I'm lacking confidence in it. That's why I think my "editor hat" will be especially helpful when I revise it, because I can work with what's there and more objectively decide what's missing or how to best present the stuff I do know.

Nerding out on writing

In writing, "rules" is a relative term. The most important thing to me when reading is consistent tense agreement and proper use of vocabulary. I am quickly distracted and lose interest in a reading if the author tries to plop down a big word and uses it incorrectly, or switches from present to past tense in the same sentence. It's bad form, and can be fixed with a bit of quick proofreading.

Of course, everybody we've been reading has progressed far beyond amateur status, so the basics come naturally to them, and they don't really need to worry about "rules" so much as flow. The people we've been reading for the most part follow grammatical conventions, but with personal style. Leakey starts sentences with conjunctions for emphasis. Bilger doesn't put quotes around the things people are saying. Neither does Cormac McCarthy, and he's doing alright.

What we've been reading lately has always involved people. We've been reading stories about people doing stuff, which has allowed plenty of opportunity for active verbs. Passive verbs still appear, but not in annoying abundance — they serve a purpose, like when Leakey says "It was the back of a small skull" (198). There's not a better way to state that, and the passive verb among the active in that case serves to emphasize the importance of the thing they found.

I never thought much about passive verbs much until I took Professional Writing with Dr. Mark Schlenz last semester, but now I am painfully aware of every time I use one. And I must say, that one small rule has improved my writing both in efficiency and interestingness (as Dr. Downs would say).

I enjoy starting sentences with conjunctions every once in a while, like I did in the previous sentence. Sentence fragments also occasionally appear in my writing, usually when I am trying to describe the sensations or emotions of a scene.

There are a few meaningless words I try to avoid like "really," "many," "only," and "just;" I also try to avoid redundancy by simply saying "different things" instead of "various different things" and stuff like that.

As the cliché goes, "when you know the rules you can break them." I'm no expert, but I feel that anybody who reads and writes regularly can develop a personal rule-breaking style and make sure it works by reading their writing out loud. If it's distracting or impossible to read without pausing, it doesn't work. If it flows, it works.

I could write about writing and grammar for days, but we're all intelligent people here. We still can't get lazy and stop proofreading our work, because a piece of writing is never "finished." It can always improve. So going into our final project, I think the best results will come from an early draft with extensive revision.

Feature Brainstorming

The feature currently has me stumped for ideas, and Dr. Reidy contributed to my uncertainty in class today.

I do know that I would like my target publication to be Scientific American. I have not read this magazine much, unfortunately, but browsing headlines and feature summaries on their website, I feel like I could get into it (I'll have to make a trip to the library to browse some hard copies, because I can't figure out a way to access full features online). Also, I'm pretty sure that unless I get a Ph.D and wait 8 years to publish, they would never consider my submission, but maybe there is some similar less-renowned publication which I could submit to, while aspiring to Scientific American standards.

Feature articles in Scientific American seem to discuss scientific issues in an accessible way which invites the reader to think, and I can get on board with that. The authors still apply background knowledge of the subject and latest research about it, which is where I start to wonder what niche I can write about.

A couple of the features relate to education, which is exciting for me, because that's what I've been studying and thinking about most in the past couple of years. Still, the most interesting articles seem to incorporate specific case studies or recent research, and I wonder if I should get out there and interview more people who are working on science that interests me.

As my peers in my writing group know, my Profile draft was a complete flop (although re-writing it was worth it), so whatever I do with my feature, I want to be able to back it up and apply my "humanities" skills and other knowledge to make it legit.

My skills are writing, whatever I've learned from being an Exponent editor, thinking about education (although I wouldn't claim to be a true "educator" yet), language (English and Spanish and thinking about the way language functions), snowboarding (there could be something there), and cooking (why not).

Now, what can I say about any of these things which is scientific and not widely known? Or, completely unrelated to these things, should I talk to more science-y people and build a story from the ground up?

Getting with the profile business

The profiles in The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing that Sacks and Perutz wrote are so personal, I do not think I can produce a quality profile about somebody I have only met once and talked to for 30 minutes (which is the time he has generously allocated for our interview tomorrow).

Because, although I'm sure I won't struggle to write 1200 words, I don't think it will be the best 1200 words a person could write about the guy.

Then again, it doesn't have to be sentimental, or even too personal. Perhaps I can frame it as an outsider looking in, providing a flashbulb of one scientist's life and work as it exists at this point in time.

The role of quotes is particularly interesting in the profiles we were assigned for Oct. 4. In Perutz, there are no quotes, but the humane writing conveys a warm, kind lady. In Sacks, quotes are skillfully used to describe the properties of Tungsten and "Uncle Tungsten's" fascination with it — since the quotes are all framed as an uncle talking to his nephew, they simplify the subject for a non-scientist while adding in that "coolness" factor which Angie values.

Dittrich is in a class of his own. I'd call it a "compound profile feature." Is it about Dr. Annese? Dr. Scoville? Henry? Histology? It could be broken down into multiple pieces, but I suppose in essence it's about Henry's brain, and all these other people are deeply involved in that story. Quotes of every type abound in the piece, serving to provide background information, highlight personality traits, and convey information in a colloquial tone. In short, they make it read like a story, which kept my undivided attention from beginning to end.

Now it seems that the questions I ask in my interview are more important than ever. If I only get 30 minutes to talk to a person I'm writing a 1200 word profile about, I feel that I should ask questions which focus on an interesting story integral to Geoff Poole's life.

In my previous post I mentioned that Poole believes rivers found him, that studying them seemed like the natural thing to do (insert metaphorical "go with the flow" pun here). Rather than ask Mr. Poole to describe his current research and such, which will take quite a while to explain due to my science-related learning disability, I think this would make for an interesting central concept of the story. I know that Poole actively goes into the field to research, placing water-logging devices in rivers and stuff, which is pretty cool. I might ask:

How did rivers find you?

Do you feel you are "giving back" to rivers through your research?

Describe the difference in your daily schedule when you are in the field vs. in the lab.

Where do you feel most at home? Why?

How long do you see yourself studying rivers?

What should every person know about rivers?

Also, a question I took from Angie's blog (modified): How does your work distinguish you from your colleagues in your department?

And finally: If you didn't live in Montana or the PNW, where would you live?

With this interview focus, I hope to create a piece with a strong flow. Pun intended.

Interview planning blog

You can probably guess the extent of my interview-planning process based on the status of my blog; that is, I'm a little behind.

However, I am not so far behind mentally as I am physically, and I just left a voicemail with the scientist I hope to interview. He happens to be a busy man (aren't we all, although some of us are busy women), and apparently most of his free time is on Fridays. Consequently, I hope to catch him Friday morning, and I also hope he checks his voicemail regularly.

The man's name is Geoff Poole, PhD, and he is an Assistant Professor in the Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Department. He is currently working on a geomorphology project studying the tributaries of the Snake River in Eastern Oregon. In a nutshell, this involves measuring how much sediment is in the water at various points in the tributaries and how much groundwater in the river affects this. At least, that is what I understood from talking to one of his research assistants, an acquaintance of mine whom is the reason I decided to talk to Geoff in the first place.

Taking Hancock's advice, I did a bit of an internet search on Geoff and found this, which begins to answer the questions that I think our assignment is after. I would like to ask Geoff to expand upon his statement, "Rather than me choosing to study rivers, rivers found me, so to speak."

This page also seems to speak to Geoff's interests and values.

Also, Geoff seems to have recently won a grant to begin new research in January. The abstract is here. I would like to ask him about this as well.

More later.

Political "science writing"

This story was written by an "AP Science Writer." Who needs a lab when you can have fun with statistics?

Belated News Brief Idea Blog

Hello interested peers,

In keeping with my interest in the female reproductive field, I am planning to write my news brief on research which explains why women might have an irregular menstrual cycle and/or the long-term implications of an irregular menstrual cycle.

I have found the following articles which sparked my interest. I could focus on one, or two or three that are most closely related, or draw examples from all of them for a non-comprehensive overview of stuff women with irregular menstrual cycles might like to know about the research therein:

"Menstrual Cycle Dysfunction Associated with Neurologic and Psychiatric Disorders"

"Long or Highly Irregular Menstrual Cycles as a Marker for Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus"

"The Relationship between Premenstrual Symptoms, Menstrual Pain, Irregular Menstrual Cycles, and Psychosocial Stress among Japanese College Students"

"Influence of anthropometric measures and socio-demographic factors on menstrual pain and irregular menstrual cycles among university students in Bangladesh"

"Yoga Nidra as a complementary treatment of anxiety and depressive symptoms in patients with menstrual disorder"

There was also one about medical residents studying to get MDs of some sort (clearly I am very familiar with this field, not) and their irregular menstrual cycles, which would relate to the articles about stressed-out Japanese students and Bangladeshi students — but I can't seem to find it again at the moment (probably because I can't remember the words I should be searching).

I know it's almost the weekend and probably nobody will look at this, but if you happen upon it I would love your input on the angle you would most enjoy reading (which of the above titles most captivated your interest? which, if any, did you click on to read more about?).

My thoughts at the moment are that I should focus on two or three articles on a similar subject. And since I'm a student, I'm leaning towards the articles about students. I think I could even frame it as if I was writing for a science-related college newspaper (maybe I'll persuade the Exponent to publish it...ha ha).

The last article about using yoga to treat menstrual disorder I think would be an interesting factoid to include at the end, kind of a more cheerful way to end the article. But, I only have 600 words, so that may or may not happen (and I think it will be clear when I write it whether it will be relevant to include or not).

Thanks, have a great weekend.

If you don't want to get pregnant but you don't like condoms, use an IUD or hormonal implant.

When a man and a woman want to have sex without using a condom but don't want to make a baby, the woman's best contraceptive option is an IUD or a hormonal implant. Women who use these forms of birth control are about 20 times less likely to unintentionally get pregnant, according to a study by the Washington University School of Medicine published May 24, 2012 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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The 7,500 women who participated in the study received free contraceptives of their choice and could change the form they were using at any time. They chose from the intrauterine device (IUD), hormonal implant, birth control pills, patch, ring and contraceptive injection. The study did not mention the use of condoms alone or in conjunction with other forms of birth control.

About 75% of women in the study chose the IUD or implant, and 0.27% of those women unintentionally got pregnant, compared with 4.55% of women using other methods of birth control.

“If there were a drug for cancer, heart disease or diabetes that was 20 times more effective, we would recommend it first,” Jeffrey Peipert, MD, told Science Daily. As one of the study's senior authors, Peipert said the results support a shift in how patients should be counseled.

Hormonal Implant
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Doctors traditionally only recommend IUDs and hormone implants to women in healthy relationships who are absolutely certain they don't want to get pregnant. "When you go to get an IUD put in, they like your boyfriend to come with you," said Carolyn Wilson, who has been using an IUD for over a year. "They just want to make sure you aren't using it to be promiscuous."

This ideology may be the reason that about 50% of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and about half of those unplanned pregnancies result from failed birth control.

* * * * * *

Ok, that's all. I based this on a Science Daily article titled "IUDs, implants most effective birth control, study suggests." The anecdote at the bottom is my own spin on it, quoting my sister. I'm not sure if that's "legit," but along with the absence of condoms in the study that is the main thing this study made me think of. Also, it's more like 300 words — the last two paragraphs are extraneous, but I included them because I want to know what you think. Does that part seem like a cohesive part of the article or a random add-in? Am I "allowed" to include something not in the original article? I think quotes always make articles more interesting, but since nobody knows who my sister is, she isn't really an authority on the subject.

Finally, do the graphics seem random? Would they be more informative with captions?

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.

Curiosity, not ADD.

In past writing classes, I have broadened my definitions of "rhetoric" and "writing," so why not broaden my definition of "science," in this class? That way, this whole "science writing" thing seems much more doable. Thanks, Elise Hancock.

This summer I worked as a gardener, and when I started I knew basically nothing about gardening. Now, I know quite a bit, at least about high-altitude mountain desert gardening (that's how I describe Big Sky's climate), and I think that qualifies as a "science" topic — what do you think?

As far as specific story ideas within that category, I'll have to think about it more.

"The curious can write about many different topics because they suck up so much miscellaneous information." (Hancock 22)

Gardening is one of the 15 jobs I've had in the 8 years I've been legally old enough to work. Clearly, I have ADD, or maybe I'm just a curious person. Thanks again, Elise. Who knew that knowing a little about a lot of random things could come in handy in a profession other than elementary education? Maybe I don't have to teach after all (not to mention the prospect of teaching high school and trying to be a writer sounds horrifying after Hancock said what you read becomes how you write).

Other science-y things I know something about:

Food. Does this count? Baking it, frying it, grilling it, etc. Everybody loves food, and I probably love it a little too much. Yesterday I made pancakes and the recipe calls for a tablespoon of sugar, but we were out of granulated sugar so I used brown instead. The first pancake came out weird, but not because of the sugar — it was because I didn't pre-heat the pan enough. Fascinating, I know.

Outdoor gear and outdoor survival. This is where I wonder about the title of Roach's compilation, "The Best American Science and Nature Writing." Is nature writing science writing? I would argue it is, when approached from a scientific standpoint rather than a political or activist standpoint, but I'd like to know what everybody else thinks about it.

Am I on the right track here? Do any of the above ideas intrigue you? What do you want to know about them?

Hey there!

Hi fellow future science writers, my name is Karen and I do not claim to know much about science, nor do I find it particularly interesting. In fact, my mom is a geologist and I grew up ignoring her while she explained the geology of every place we visited. I do remember there are two types of lava, a'a and pahoehoe (pronounced p'hoy-hoy). A'a is the stuff you wouldn't want to walk on barefoot, while pahoehoe is nice and smooth. One of them cooled faster than the other, or something.

Anyway, I wrote some other stuff about myself on my profile you can see on the right module of this blog, if you care to read it. I guess not much about me screams "science writer" but I do tend to want to learn about and do everything, so this will be a good way to expand my horizons while I keep truckin' on my degrees (hopefully I'll get two B.A.'s if I survive student teaching, but who really knows). At any rate I'm happy to have a great group of people in class, so this science thing should be pretty fun after all.