Society for Experimental BiologyApril 2007
Latha Menon, Oxford University Press
Impact Academic – interest to wide range of peers in academia - not all popular science is for one audience
George Orwell – Politics and the English Language
Haldane article from many years ago for whom are you writing talk directly to the reader Dawkins really makes me feel like he’s talking to me Need to know your audience what kind of science is that? if go into a book shop and purcase a non-science book on science
we are trying to get these books to the bookshops, but for people to choose to read non-fiction is because they want to find out more
having a sense of history is crucial to any book – maybe not string theory
endnotes
ME: how does OUP feel about endnotes?
not good form to present to public an idea that has not been presented to peer review
Haldane: must be highly selective
key aspect is content outline - under each chapter title, short descxription of what you are covering - about 75,000 words, 8 chapters - shape of chapter should be crystal clear
How do tou evaluate what sort of author will be a good science writer
really about telling a story
if write content outline in that way
helping people find those frames is crucial
try to do it without any pictures
strucfure, tone, polish
ME: how do authors deal with the public eye?
can you get a full stop instead of a comma or semi colon
active voice! NOT passive!
Haldane - in my last book on genetics is 7 quotations from Dante. I don’t agree with Dante’s….but he had a theory o
Myra Wilson
Intelligent Robotics (different from remote control))
Noel Sharkey who was on the programme as a judge asked Myra to participate
great deal of sportsmanship
people helping others with parts to ensure the competition was good
TechnoGames - Like a Robot Olympics
way of getting people into robotics
family friendly
overlap of competitors
ME: were the competitors engineers?
Science and the Media Tara, EdinburghUniversity of Paisley
Gettting Coverage simplify language human interest – what does it mean to person on street implications – how affect future
say ‘this could happen’ not ‘it wil’
People spend more time reading
Tim Radford the nature of a story and the tools we use to tell a story
Stephen jay gould – wonderful life - our modern pattern of…