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Edited by Christina M. Marvin
 Siri Carpenter, science writer and editor-in-chief for The Open Notebook. Photo courtesy of Siri Carpenter.
Earlier this year, the Science Talk team hosted a live chat with science journalist and editor Siri Carpenter. Members of the Science Talk community submitted burning questions on science writing and editing to Siri in real time — keep reading to see what we learned! This week's focus is on science writing. Be sure to tune in next week when we continue our conversation with science editing.
Siri is a scientist and science writer who is now the editor-in-chief for The Open Notebook, an amazing and comprehensive resource for science writers. She recently published a new resource for science writers, The Craft of Science Writing.
What was the impetus to make this book [The Craft of Science Writing] happen? What drove you to put all this information together? Over the years, The Open Notebook (TON) has published around 400 articles about the craft of science writing. One reason [the idea of a book] appealed to me was that I knew that there were themes we could draw out, ways that articles we’d published at disparate points in time would connect with one another. And I knew that realistically, no one is going to go ahead and open up 400 tabs on their browser and just happen to discover those things! I wanted to be able to do that work for people and give people something they could hold in their hands and digest in one piece — or that they could skip around and read pieces of as the spirit moved them. But we didn’t have the resources to do it. Then, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, which since 2013 has supported our early-career fellowship program, offered us a grant to financially support development of a book — so then it was a no-brainer to do it!  The Craft of Science Writing, a new resource for science writers. Photo courtesy of Siri Carpenter.
How did you get into science writing, Siri?
I was working on my PhD in psychology when I realized, one day, that "science writing" was a thing that existed. I actually had nosed around this idea earlier, as an undergrad, even going so far as to ask professors in my psychology department, and in the English department, at the University of Wisconsin, where I was an undergrad, whether there was a way to be a writer who wrote about science. But they were all like: "No, that's not a thing." Somehow it never once occurred to me that the thing I was talking about — thinking and writing about science but not actually doing the science — was JOURNALISM. So I never went and asked journalism professors. I went to grad school for psychology, and about 2.5 years into my PhD program, I was reading the NYT science section one Tuesday, when I just kind of had this realization that these people whose articles I was reading ... this appeared to be their JOB. Science writing was (maybe?) a job.
I went to grad school for psychology, and about 2.5 years into my PhD program, I was reading the NYT science section one Tuesday, when I just kind of had this realization that these people whose articles I was reading ... this appeared to be their JOB. Science writing was (maybe?) a job.
I just kind of knew, instantly, that I wanted that job. But of course I had no idea how to prepare for or get such a job. But on the National Association of Science Writers website, if you can believe it, they had a list of "science writers who have email." I emailed everyone on that list, with what were probably the vaguest questions ever, about what a science writer does and how you become one. One person wrote me back — Charles Seife, who at the time was a pretty new science writer, and who now is a journalist and professor at NYU. Charles very kindly explained it all to me, and he told me about the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship program. (This program is an EXCELLENT way to get started in science writing.) 
The AAAS Mass Media Fellowship Program is an excellent opportunity to build skills in science journalism. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Science_logo.svg
By that point, I knew in my bones that I wanted to somehow become a science writer, but then I had to figure out what to tell my advisor. Finally I went to her office, shut the door for what I thought would be a tense and possibly tearful discussion, and just kind of barfed out everything I wanted to say. Her response was, "Oh! If that's what you want to do, I will support you to do that." WHEW!!! (My advisor was the psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, and she is still a very close friend.) I was very lucky to get that AAAS fellowship, so I spent a summer working as a reporter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia; and then the next summer at Science News. These internships were the only training I got as a science writer before my first real job (which was at the APA Monitor, a magazine for members of the American Psychological Association), so I was extremely lucky to have great mentors. But I still had sooooo much to learn. I would love to hear your advice on what I can do at this stage of my life to further explore and prepare for a career in science writing. Depending on how certain you are about trying out science writing, I'd recommend considering joining the National Association of Science Writers as a student member (it's about $30/year), and attending the annual ScienceWriters meeting (in October) if you can. (Full disclosure: I'm the current president of NASW; but I'd still encourage you to join and attend that meeting even if I weren't on the board!) I’d also recommend looking into whether there are any regional science writers’ groups in your area; check out the website for the Congress of Regional Science Writers groups (SciWriCongress) for a listing. Then, you should read a lot of science writing, and you want to read a lot about science writing. In addition to the TON book and website, which of course I'm flogging like there's no tomorrow ? I'd recommend two other books: “The Science Writer's Handbook”, published in 2013, and the “Field Guide for Science Writers” (2nd edition), published in ~ 2006.  Twitter
If you're active on Twitter, I'd recommend starting to follow a bunch of science writers, and the #scicomm hashtag. You might also like to follow the Friends of TON Twitter list (https://twitter.com/i/lists/1177315816678789127), which includes people who have been contributors to TON or who have worked with us as editors, early-career fellows, mentors, etc.
I think even if you are aware that choosing the non-academic career is a good option for you, people do find a lot of roadblocks, both internal (imposter syndromes etc.) and external (sometimes staying a bit too long in academia doing postdocs, might make it more difficult to be seen as someone more than a 'failed' academic) In the intro to “The Craft of Science Writing”, I make a joke about impostor syndrome — specifically, about not even being able to spell it correctly (impostor? imposter?). There's also a long, in-depth article in the book about it, and it's one of my favorites, because this is such a pervasive feeling among science journalists. (And of course many others!) I have wrestled with impostor syndrome for ... uh ... my entire life I think. And I think it's something people should speak more openly about, because knowing how common it is can PARTLY help you brush it back. Partly. But I think what's also important is to kind of personify impostor syndrome — acknowledge its existence as a force in your mind, call it the a$$hole that it is, and then, to the extent that you possibly can, dismiss it. But also, know that it may never go away, and that doesn't mean you failed — or that the impostor syndrome a$$hole was right all along. It's just part of living. Do you have some advice for people who feel like they could become science writers for a living, but might need to develop new skills, and are rather afraid of lack of stability, therefore it is difficult to completely commit to this path, as it is full of uncertainties, especially when starting. What I mean is, how do I break into the profession? There is no single correct path, either for getting initial opportunities in science writing or for what type of role to pursue. The first steps, of course, are all about learning. There are a number of excellent science journalism or science communication masters programs out there that you may already be familiar with (e.g., at UC Santa Cruz, NYU, MIT, and elsewhere); these are excellent ways to get started, if you can make them work financially (I think some offer significant financial aid, but I'm not familiar with the details). 
Internships (which should be paid!) are hugely valuable, but they can require at least temporary relocation, which is a challenge for some; and of course even if they're paid, they don't tend to be paid very generously. At TON, we see part of our role as being to offer a free educational experience to science writers.
As for making a living at science writing ... I think if you asked 10 different science writers their thoughts on that, you'd probably get 10 different answers. I will say that over my career, my annual gross income (during years when I've been full-time, not counting when my kids were babies) has ranged from about $23K to about $75K (that was when I was in a staff editing position at Discover). Most years, I make less than $50K/year.
Most science journalists I know are in one of several situations, financially:
I suspect that in general, institutional writers and public information officers have a more steady income stream than journalists (many of whom are freelancers) do, but I don’t think that by and large it’s a path to getting rich, either. There's a lot of uncertainty in journalism, and it's a tough time. But it's also an exciting time in science journalism — there are so many cool new opportunities for telling science stories in new ways, and for finding audiences for stories.
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We had a conference...and it (mostly) worked! Looking back at Science Talk ‘20: A Virtual Experience4/13/2020  In three short weeks we transitioned from our plans for a face-to-face (FTF) conference to virtual live-streamed event. While there were a few hiccups (and cats!), overall the event was a major success, and feedback from the post-conference survey has been overwhelmingly positive. Several organizations have asked us about the transition to a virtual conference, so here goes...a brief summary of our strategy and some lessons learned. The tech We used the Crowdcast platform instead of a more familiar technology like Zoom. Crowdcast has a great feature - the green room. This allows the host and presenter(s) to meet privately and test the presenter’s audio and video before the session goes live. While the host and presenter are working, attendees can still enter the session “room” and chat with one another over text. The text chat was a big hit overall - lots of chat traffic during sessions, including people posting links to resources mentioned during talks. Crowdcast allows up to four simultaneous video shares, which works great for keynotes and panels but posed a challenge for our fast-pitch session, where conference attendees can sign up to give a one-minute elevator pitch to the group. Coordinating screen sharing permissions to invite fast-pitch speakers was complicated, particularly for speakers who didn’t have a great internet connection. Connection speed is always a hurdle for live streaming. We encouraged all presenters to test their connection prior to the conference and to set up a hard-wired ethernet connection if possible. One speaker even sent his kids out to play in the yard during his talk, just so they wouldn’t eat up bandwidth!  The program We offered all conference presenters the option to present virtually or to move their presentations to Science Talk ‘21. Our goal was to provide a shorter but still action-packed conference. We therefore scaled back to provide 5 hours of content a day, rather than the usual 8-10 hours; 5 hours is enough to sit in front of a computer! In addition to traditional talks and panels, we invited poster presenters to give 3-minute lightning talks about their posters; we then posted the posters on our online forum for later viewing. For the virtual conference, we developed a few new sessions - breakout discussions, and a “fireside” chat (bring your own fire!) about science communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus chat was obviously popular during this highly dynamic and uncertain time and the audience asked insightful questions during the 90-minute session. Attendees submitted questions using the “ask a question” feature in Crowdcast, which allows other attendees to then upvote questions. The session moderators selected the most popular questions and posed them to the expert panel, which kept the session moving. The breakouts each focused on a different theme (connecting science and art, reaching underserved audiences, etc.) and conference attendees could pick the session they wished to attend, or jump between sessions, just like you can move between rooms at a FTF conference. As small, discussed-focused sessions, the breakouts would have benefitted from a platform like Zoom or Google Hangouts where all participants could simultaneously share audio and video. Mixing technologies might work better, although more platforms also equates to more opportunities for something to break. We also scheduled coffee breaks with “rooms” for people to text chat while they got their snacks. Over 100 people joined these breaks and networked with other conference participants - not quite the same as FTF, but still a good experience. Finally, we ended with a virtual dance party (thanks DJ Kiki), with music, virtual toasts, and a disco ball.  The lessons Having an expert makes all the difference. VP Public Relations Dr. Kiki Sanford (Broader Impacts Productions) is a pro at live-streamed events and she controlled the process and worked with our presenters to prepare them in advance. I highly recommend her services as tech expert and event MC. No platform is perfect! We had some trouble with Crowdcast, particularly Friday morning. Test drive the tech before the event, but plan for contingencies, and ask your attendees to be forgiving. Just like people at a FTF event sometimes need to ask for directions, attendees at a virtual conference have questions. We developed a FAQ for common questions, then during the conference Science Talk staff monitored our email account and online community site to address questions in (close to) real time. Still, we could have anticipated more of the questions and included them in the FAQ. There was a lot of understandable confusion during the transition from FTF to virtual. Cats derail conversation! One panelist’s cat clearly had important thoughts about communication between scientists and journalists. The panel continued in a professional manner, but the text chat erupted with virtual cries of “CAT!” and lots of cat emojis. I’ve even received requests for live cats at next year’s FTF conference.  The take-away
I was reluctant to try a live-streamed conference - Kiki did a lot of arm twisting to convince me! She was right. People are home and want to connect. Even outside of a pandemic, some people don’t have funds or time for conference travel or want to reduce their carbon footprint. A virtual conference increases accessibility. We had participants from four continents, which wouldn’t happen FTF. Science Talk ‘21 will happen FTF in Portland, OR on March 25-26. We will also offer a live-stream option to allow everyone to participate, from anywhere in the world. But...probably no cats. By Amy Nippert and Christina Marvin, Science Talk blog co-editors  Science talk blog is excited to welcome our two new editors, Amy Nippert and Christina M. Marvin. We’re happy to have them join the team and add their vision to the blog. Look for some changes in pitching guidelines and blog organization, but still feel free to pitch them in the meantime. We’d like to thank Simon Bakke for his great work and dedication to the blog over these past couple years. We’ll be coordinating with everyone who has recently pitched us within the upcoming weeks. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to working with you!  Amy is a full time graduate student and a part time science communicator. She is currently working on a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. In addition to her work studying the effect of diabetes on the vasculature of the brain and retina, she works as a freelance science writer and editor. Amy earned a BS in Neuroscience and BA in English at the University of Arizona, where she worked as a science writer and editor for The Daily Wildcat. In her spare time, Amy goes curling, dabbles in art, and tries to achieve new heights in a climbing gym. A desert dweller at heart, she can be found wrapped in wool scarves and drinking copious amounts of tea in her laboratory.  Christina is a trained chemist and science communicator. She is currently the lead project assistant for the Discovery Connecting Science team at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
After almost 10 years at a public library, she began a new career with the aim to combine community engagement and science. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from King's College in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania and her PhD in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. While at UNC, she interned at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and led organizations dedicated to science communication training such as ComSciCon - Triangle and the UNC Science Writing and Communication group. She then focused on climate science communication for classrooms as a postdoc in science education and engagement with Bassam Shakhashiri's Science is Fun lab at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She writes for a number of science blogs and has two wonderful fur-babies. In her spare time, she reads, runs, and explores breweries. |
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