Eureka! Science Writing for General Audiences

In this first week, you’ll look at the current landscape of science writing opportunities and discuss the need for exciting, accurate writing about scientific research and discovery. You’ll look at examples of writing that seeks to be (or has proven to be) policy-changing. You’ll also discuss some practicalities, such as ways of recording and note-keeping that can make the fact-checking process go more smoothly. You will have an optional writing exercise of up to 500 words. 

What if you weren’t there when the eureka moment happened? What if the eureka moment is months or years away? This week you will look at how to bring research alive on the page—even if it seems static in the lab—by learning note-taking and interviewing techniques that will help with writing three-dimensional actors and putting them into realistic spaces. You will write a draft of part of your essay (up to 750 words) and submit it to the instructor. Optionally, this exercise can also be shared with classmates for peer reviews. 

This week you will put yourself in the shoes of a brand new science writer (regardless of your scientific expertise) and hit the metaphorical pavement. You will talk about how to find newsworthy stories about research and track down experts who can help. You’ll address questions such as how to ask for an interview if you haven’t sold the story yet, when to write the story first and when to pitch first, and how to be sure your sources are reliable. You will also look at how to find scenes within your work, to get those characters and settings to interact, while maintaining factual accuracy. You will also talk about the pitfalls (and occasional practicalities) of re-creating scenes, speculation, compression, conflation, and compositing. You will have an optional writing exercise of up to 500 words.

Scientific research is often a very long-term, on-going process. Discoveries and findings are announced intermittently and often with inconclusive or anti-climactic results. How can you find an engaging story within such an unpredictable process? How can you craft relatable stories about inanimate objects, non-human organisms, complex policies, or scientific theory? You will discuss techniques for making large stories small enough to reach a non-expert reader and connecting those small stories back to your larger concepts. You will write an essay of up to 3,500 words that incorporates exercises from the first two weeks (or new writing based on skills practiced during the exercises) and submit it to the instructor.You may also submit work to your classmates for peer review.

During this final week, you’ll discuss how to find markets for science-based nonfiction. Which literary publications foster science and nature writing? Which popular markets publish literary coverage from the science frontiers? You will discuss how to query editors and how the revision and fact-checking process works once your piece or project is accepted for publication. You will have an optional writing exercise.