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.