Writers and Editors


"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
~ Dorothy Parker

As much as 45 percent of what we do every day is a habit,
researchers say, triggered by one of the following:
* a specific location or time of day
* a certain series of actions
* a particular mood
* the company of specific people.

From "Warning: habits may be good for you," by Charles Duhigg (The New York Times, 7-13-08)

SCIENCE PODCASTS



In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.
~ Sir Francis Darwin

"If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well.

"Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

"Everything should be as simple as it can be, yet no simpler"
~ Albert Einstein

If you can’t explain your theory to a bartender, it’s probably no good.
~ Ernest Rutherford, astrophysicist, quoted by Bill Roorbach in Writing Life Stories

"Just tell me what time it is! I don't care how you built the clock!"

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser, “The Speed of Darkness”




Find Authors


ORGANIZATIONS FOR MEDICAL AND SCIENCE WRITERS
See listings also under
Commercial (corporate and technical) writing and
For editors


For more on technical writing, check out Corporate and technical writing. For wonderful examples of new ways to tell a science story, check out Beyond text (adding images, sound, story, humor).

Entries here will be more helpful for "science writers" (which is what I would call those of us writing about science for the general reader) than for "scientific writers" (scientists writing for each other).

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RESOURCES FOR SCIENCE AND MEDICAL WRITERS


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Books for Science and Medical Writers

Alliance for Health Reform, Covering Health Issues (download free online)

Avorn, Jerry. Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs
The Best American Science Writing (annual).

**Blum, Deborah; Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig. A Field Guide for Science Writers, 2nd edition (2005)

**Cohn, Victor and Lewis Cope. News & Numbers: A Guide to Reporting Statistical Claims and Controversies in Health and Other Fields, 2nd edition

Deyo, Richard and Donald Patrick. Hope or Hype. This overview of medicine emphasizes how as a culture we promote new (especially high-tech) measures that are often less effective and more costly than old standards

Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

Friedman, Sharon M., Sharon Dunwoody, and Carol Rogers, eds. Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science

Gastel, Barbara. Health Writer's Handbook

Gawande, Atul. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science

Gawande, Atul. Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

Greenberg, Daniel S. Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion

Groopman, Jerome. How Doctors Think

Groopman, Jerome. Second Opinions: Stories of Intuition and Choice in the Changing World of Medicine

**Hancock, Elise. Ideas into Words: Mastering the Craft of Science Writing

Institute of Medicine. To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Read free online.

Kassirer, Jerome P. On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health

Levi, Ragnar. Medical Journalism: Exposing Fact, Fiction, Fraud

Moynihan, Ray and Alan Cassels. Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients

Mullan, Fitzhugh, Ellen Ficken, and Kyna Rubin, eds. Narrative Matters: The Power of the Personal Essay in Health Policy

Nuland, Sherwin. How We Die and How We Live

Park, Robert L. Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud

Science books discussed on Science Friday

The Scientist (the periodical).

Stewart, James. Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away with Murder

Veatch, Robert M. The Basics of Bioethics, 2nd ed.

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Websites, organizations, and other resources

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