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How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
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I'm revising this intro after more than 15 years to better reflect my intention When I started this blog in 2004, I was a stay at home mom to two small children, a college graduate with a degree in English and Astrophysics. By 2007, I had four small children, ages newborn, 2, 4, and 6. For several years, Writing.com was how I kept my sanity. This blog began, first as a way of staying connected. Later, when I worked on a novel, I used it to stoke the writing fires as I plotted out short stories and the next step of my novel. Ultimately, I moved my writing preparation to "Invalid Item"  In 2010, I became a single mom who had homeschooled her children for several years. I had a 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old and had never had a "real" full time job, since I was married while in college. Everyone told me that I would have to buckle down and take on a "real" job. Instead, I decided to attempt to live my dream: to make it as a writer. I knew that if I didn't try then, I would never really dive in. I counted my money and set a deadline. If I hadn't began making a decent (defined) amount of money after so many months, I would suck it up and get a J-O-B. After some thought, I decided to play to my strengths. I served an internship at Sky & Telescope magazine while in college and enjoyed writing about space and astronomy. With an astrophysics degree, I thought I would be able to sell myself more easily, and a small niche should be easier to penetrate. It's been about ten years since I was first paid for an article on Space.com. In that time, writing - journalism - has been my primary moneymaker. I've often thought about setting up a blog on my website - www.astrowriter.com - but just haven't gotten around to it. There are a few things I would like to share for those who are interested in scientific journalism in general. Now that I'm back on WDC, there's no reason not to combine the two and use the site blog for that sort of interaction. There are certainly plenty of folks on this site interested in the publication process. So while I'll probably meander around some, that's the intention of of this blog: to share some of my struggles as a published journalist and to help answer oft-asked questions. |
| Writing Sprint! Set a timer for 10 minutes and write without stopping about whatever comes to your mind. I challenge you to deny your urge to edit yourself as you write. If you must, you’re allowed to edit, but only after you finish your ten minute sprint. Ready? Set. GO! Alexa, set a time for 10 minutes. See, who said Alexa was worthless? Oh wait, that's me. Today was a crazy day, two interviews and my brain is exploding. I'm trying to at least skim my way through a collection of something like 30 papers and I suspect that I am over-researching. On the other hand, it's an interesting subject - did ancient Mars once boast an ocean? I thought that it was something of a given but I've recently learned that I am incorrect on that front. So I'm interviewing several scientists who are for and those who are against, and apparently those who fall in between. I've been very fortunate in that many of the folks I've spoken to are very articulate and good at explaining things. "What?" you say. "I thought someone with a PhD would be articulate?" It's funny, but sometimes it seems the more people know the less they know how to explain it. Most of the time, folks who have been in the field for awhile, or those who are very involved in public engagement (often women, minorities, etc) do a pretty good to very good job. It's the graduate students and the post docs, those who are fairly new to the field, who often stumble. Sometimes I suspect that they get very technical not because they don't understand it but because they want to prove that they understand it. The result is often not understandable. However, I do occasionally get people who stay strongly in the technical camp, even after years of experience. Those interviews can be painful. The thing is, a good science journalist should have a decent grasp of the subject going in (see my concern about over-researching). At the very least, they would have read the paper. Bonus points for having at least skimmed if not read other papers on the subject, which can often be found in the references. So the dirty little secret is that 9:10 times, the journalist is looking for a good quote. That's why examples and metaphors, as well as colorful language, can be helpful. Personal stories also help. These can all help demonstrate the science better to the public. That said, there are things that I occasionally don't understand, and I will ask about them, no fear. I'll also ask you to repeat yourself if I think I misunderstood - which can give you time to correct me when it turns out I didn't! I always go in with a list of questions for my researchers, but I generally try to draw my interview questions from what they are saying. Now, for those of you who are interested in science writing. One of the first things you can do, which has the potential to scare you off the job - but shouldn't! - is actually read a research paper or two. Nature and Science often have some public access papers on their site that don't require purchase. If you're an astronomy fan, arxiv.org has a bunch of free-to-read papers. The first thing you will do when you pick up an article, if you don't have a phD or even a bachelors - and maybe if you do - is think, holy crap, is this in English?! It may be a challenge to understand every single part of the paper. Another dirty secret - there are parts under the methods that I am often like, say what? and maybe sometimes skim. However, if you are just getting familiar with the subject, the abstract, introduction, and conclusion are your best friend. Sometimes just before the conclusion is a discussion section, and it can also be helpful. The abstract will give you an overview of the paper. Think of it as the back or side cover of a book, except they will definitely spoil the ending. Which is good, because you don't want to spend your time reading a paper if you aren't interested in the results. The introduction was a huge help to me when I first started out, and remains a help today. Often, it will review the state of the field and discuss what the current thoughts are on the subject, and pros and cons to those. It might give you an overview of the planetary body or astronomical object type being studied. The middle section involves methods and calculations and experiments. These are good to review if you're writing an article, to check things like error bars and how the experiment was set up and the like. If you're just trying to familiarize yourself with the field you can skim these. I've been told that these are more important in medical research - how large was the sample pool, how are the methods - but I'm an astronomy journalist so it's usually "we pointed the telescope at this for this much time with this instrument. Then we did this, that and the other to the results." The discussion puts the results in context and the conclusion wraps it up and can also provide some context. Sometimes researchers will outline their next steps or how the results will translate to upcoming instruments like James Webb ("the next Hubble"). Even if you don't want to be a science journalist, I encourage you to go pick up a paper from Nature or Science's website and skim it. It will give you a little more appreciation for the scientific process! |
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