Preparation

I am an academic. Academic habit no. 1: When in doubt do a literature review. First thing I did on hearing I was going to be spending a month at the Times? Ordered some books on science writing from amazon.

The first book was pretty poor. I can't remember what it was called - probably just as well. It was a skinny little thing on writing magazine and newspaper features in general, not science in particular. It devoted a lot of space to grammar and making sure you tell the truth. Maybe it's skinniness was its key redeeming feature - it didn't take too long to read. I put it in a pile with a vague thought that it could be useful for a particularly illiterate future undergrad.

Book number 2 was more promising. Again fairly skinny but this time written by the editor of an American university's science magazine. I had never heard of such a thing. In fact, maybe the best thing I learnt from this book was that big American universities have in-house science review magazines. These are written by journalists and intended for alumni. They function both to keep people in touch with their unis, do a bit of PR for the unis, and also to inform. What great idea. We should have one. I might suggest it. Given that a key feature is that they are written by journalists, this is a good idea that giving voice to could never back fire in a "good idea Jean, why don't you lead on that"?

I have carried the third book with me on various trips and journeys over the last few months. Until this afternoon it remained unread. Now I've managed to read the first 50 pages or so. It's an edited volume of top tips. On the whole I'm not a big fan of edited volumes. I get sea sick from too frequent changes in style and voice. But actually I'm quite liking this. Each chapter is only about 2000-4000 words, so it's good for the distracting circumstances of a train journey. But each writer also seems to have been given a pretty clear brief and stuck to it. There is a feeling of progression, if not narrative. Is it only academics who can't keep to a brief and sling in contributions to edited volumes that barely hit somewhere 500yds from the mark? Maybe it's to do with a lack of experience of editorial control. Or maybe they're just not journalists.