A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers
A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers Books
Product Description
The best guide for teaching and learning effective science writing, this second edition of A Field Guide for Science Writers improves on the classic first edition with a wider range of topics, a new slate of writers, and an up-to-date exploration of the most stimulating and challenging issues in science. In this collection of essays, nationally known science writers Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig assemble the best science writers working today to clarify what they do and how to do it well.
Field Guide combines detailed and matter-of-fact how-to advice with thoughtful discussions of the challenges of science journalism in the 21st century. It doesn’t shy away from addressing such controversial matters as cloning, stem cell research, eugenics, medical overtreatment, and questions of scientific honesty. Offering a comprehensive overview of the field of science writing, this book discusses a broad range of media and sources, from newspapers to broadcast journalism and from corporations to government agencies. It also provides a detailed analysis of some of the hottest fields in science writing — ranging from mental health to human genetics — and covers a diverse array of writing styles, from “gee-whiz” to investigative.
With more than 45 esteemed contributors — people who work for such leading news outlets as Scientific American, Well loved Science, Learn, Smithsonian, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal — this book is an invaluable resource for current and aspiring science writers, students and instructors in science writing and journalism, and scientists who are interested in science communication.Amazon.com Review
Science writers are translators of sorts: they transform the jargon-laden language and arcane concepts of the science world into something the rest of us can know and even appreciate. For this, they must be able to comprehend (and assess the value of) the science at hand, then simplify, calling into action whatever metaphor and analogy they can find to get the thought across. For this obligatory guidebook, 39 committed and enthusiastic science writers chime in about what their jobs entail. Among them are newspaper reporters, magazine and journal contributors, book authors, and freelance, editorial, and op-ed writers. Specialists relate the intricacies of covering topics such as infectious diseases, neuroscience, the environment, and technology. A final section explores science-writing jobs for colleges and universities, government agencies, museums, and industry. Particularly fascinating is the chapter by Mary Knudson, a freelance novelist who covered medicine for the Baltimore Sun for 18 years and one of the editors of this book; in the chapter, she dissects one of her articles, explaining how she arrived at each piece of in rank included therein.
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With a foreword by Carl Sagan, this book is a treasure of “how to” in rank by the best writers in many fields of science writing.
Rating: 5 / 5
Was very excited to get reading my new paperback copy of “A Field Guide for Science Writers.” But, I may possibly not read it!
The text is size 6 font and the chapter blurbs and excerpts are size 4 sans serif. Would be comic if I hadn’t paid $20. Seems like a lot of people worked on this unreadable piece. I suspect the book says “consider your audience” and stuff like that, or maybe it doesn’t, I will never know. I read 2 or 3 books a week, so I took a look at the last batch of things I have read to see if I was hallucinating, but alas, this book is the smallest font by about half…
Hope I can get my money back.
Seems a bit bone idle to this novelist and editor. Would not guess shabby design from a novelist’s organization.
Maybe the hardback is better?
Rating: 1 / 5
As a honestly experienced science novelist – http://www.sciencebase.com/resume.html – I didn’t anticipate learning any news tricks from this book, but it’s well worth checking out if your journalistic beat is anything from astronomy to zoology by way of molecular architecture and quantum mechanics
Rating: 5 / 5
Doing science writing without reading this is like preaching in a Baptist church without having read the Bible.
Buy it. Read it. Keep it at your elbow.
Rating: 5 / 5
This collection of articles outlining different aspects of science writing offers a broad spectrum of the field. It covers different professions and offers matter-of-fact advice fantastic for any technical or professional novelist. Its newer version is also fantastic. They complement each other and are surprisingly well matched.
Rating: 4 / 5