A Field Guide for Science Writers

Rating:
Summary: Field Guides
Review: As a fairly experienced science writer - 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:
Summary: Handy guide for would-be science writers
Review: The editor's note says that the primary goal of this book is "to help train a new generation of science writers." I think the key word there is "help." One is certainly not ready to go out and be a science writer after reading this slim volume, but then one shouldn't expect to be.

What I think this book does do is to give the reader some idea of what's involved in being a science writer and to provide numerous pointers along the way. This is done in several ways. The first section of the book contains half-a-dozen chapters on the different "homes" of science writers: newspapers, magazines, journals, broadcast media, etc. The second section focuses more on technique: the use of sources, handling statistics, and so on. The third section addresses science writing from a topical perspective: how to write about subjects like biology, astronomy, and technology. And the fourth section has several chapters on being a science writer at various sorts of institutions (universities, government agencies, businesses), rather than for the media.

Each chapter is written by a different person who is an expert in that area. For someone like me who knows his science writers, there are some notable names here: Julie Ann Miller, editor of Science News, has a chapter about writing for trade journals; John Noble Wilford, who covered Project Apollo for the New York Times and wrote the very first book to come out about Apollo 11, addresses writing science books; PBS personality Ira Flatow discusses doing science on television.

The book concludes with an appendix covering useful sources of information, which seems handy. I particularly want to order the chart of the fundamental particles--I've never been able to keep those straight!

So this is a very useful book for someone going into science writing and interesting, too, to anyone who wants to know what's involved in covering science from a journalistic perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Field Guide for Science Writers who read with a microscope
Review: Was very excited to get reading my new paperback copy of "A Field Guide for Science Writers." However, I could not read it!

The text is size 6 font and the chapter blurbs and excerpts are size 4 sans serif. Would be comical 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 lazy to this writer and editor. Would not expect shabby design from a writer's organization.

Maybe the hardback is better?

Rating:
Summary: Field Guide for Science Writers who read with a microscope
Review: Was very excited to get reading my new paperback copy of "A Field Guide for Science Writers." However, I could not read it!

The text is size 6 font and the chapter blurbs and excerpts are size 4 sans serif. Would be comical 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 lazy to this writer and editor. Would not expect shabby design from a writer's organization.

Maybe the hardback is better?

Rating:
Summary: Trade secrets galore!
Review: With a foreword by Carl Sagan, this book is a treasure of "how to" information by the best writers in many fields of science writing.