
15
Nov 1995, The Daily Telegraph As
well as science what do you know?
Expert
advice on how to win the ninth Young Science Writer Awards from astronomer John
Barrow. By John Barrow 
SO
YOU want to be a science writer. "Listen," one told me, "I've been
writing for just a few months and I've already sold several articles - my coat,
my typewriter, and my watch." So how do you join this lucrative profession?
Anyone can have a go, but asking how to make a success
of it is a little like asking the gardener of Trinity College how he gets his
lawns to look so immaculate. "Just roll and water for 600 years sir."
The moral is that it is a gradual process. There needs
to be groundwork: the establishment of a base of accurate information, a grip
on the grammar of language, and an ability to apply the seat of your pants to
the seat of your chair. But don't lock yourself away in a lighthouse, because
you also need an eye for the world around you: an ability to see everyday things
in new ways and a familiarity with matters of interest to the public and the press.
Keep your eye on a wide range of newspapers and magazines.
You will find it difficult to write effectively for publications of which you
are not a reader. Your own grasp of science will determine the limit of your ability
to shed light on developments at its frontiers. Let common sense be your guide.
Don't attempt a confident pronouncement on the significance
of relativistic quantum field theory if you know less about it than the average
reader, or their cat. But don't give up. Why not try to interview some experts?
Be what you are, a typical reader wanting to find out something about a subject
of which you know almost nothing. Ask the questions needed
to discover what it's all about. Find out about the individuals who do the research:
Why do they do it? How do they work? What else do they do? They might just be
looking for someone like you to write a popular article. Get
used to obtaining information from the primary source - the scientists doing the
work - not from other popular accounts of it. In the process you will accumulate
a collection of useful contacts. Fortunately, there is more to science writing
than writing about science. Your success or failure will
hinge largely upon your knowledge of other things. Most scientists make poor literary
expositors because they know little beyond their own field and write only for
like-minded experts in research journals that make few linguistic demands upon
them. Scientists are extreme specialists. By contrast, the successful science
writer is more often a divergent thinker. Two of my
favourites, Primo Levi (The Periodic Table) and Diane Ackerman (A Natural History
of the Senses), could not be called science writers at all, but use science to
illuminate the many aspects of the human condition. Another
favourite, Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams), informs fiction with science in
a unique way. There is something unexpected and oblique about the writing of each
of these authors that shows up the average scientist's limited experience of the
world and its inhabitants. Be encouraged: because of this blindspot you may one
day be surprised to discover that you have made a better job of writing about
Professor Jargonbender's Nobel-prizewinning discovery (and Professor Jargonbender)
than ever he could himself. Good writing encourages good
reading: good writing is writing that is read, and then re-read. What you read
and re-read will colour your style. Its quality will
set the standard you aspire to reach. It should also teach you of the need to
adopt different styles for different audiences. Charles Darwin's prose style sounds
very impressive in Victorian drawing-rooms but would not impress the editor of
a mass circulation newspaper today. Know your audience. As
in most things, practice makes perfect. Look for opportunities to write for others.
Letter writing is a much neglected art and book reviewing provides an ephemeral
outlet that offers a ready-made answer to that great question of human existence,
"What shall I write about?". The word processor
will probably be the tool of your trade. It is a blessing and a curse. Its positive
features are obvious, but it will make your prose baggy and indirect; it tempts
you to reuse sentences and paragraphs, to move them around, in fact to do anything
except delete them. Revision should be a process of
simplification: removing redundant words, dividing long sentences, choosing the
best words and placing them in the best possible order. A little humour helps
make science more digestible. Can you make good use of it? Some parts of your
article are of special importance. The title is vital. Does your opening sentence
capture the reader's attention? In your final sentence you have the reader's total
attention. Make the most of it. Does what you write pass the test of the tongue
- can it be read aloud? Try it. Does it sound right, does it flow, does it have
continuity, does it makes sense? Generally, good speakers
make good writers. It is no accident that the greatest writings in the English
language, the King James Bible and Shakespeare's plays, were written to be read
aloud. If you can't explain science in simple words to your friends at the pub
you probably won't be able to do it on paper either. Verbal
explanation also brings you into direct contact with listeners and typical readers.
You learn immediately what they find hard to understand, where your attempts flounder,
and what questions they want answering. Remember the three golden rules: think
no jargon, speak no jargon, write no jargon. Okay, so
you've got style, you know a little science, and you know how to check your facts;
but how do you find something to write about? Your greatest gift is curiosity.
Encourage it; it will help you to identify those everyday phenomena that others
overlook. Interesting science is all around you. Develop
an eye for the unexpected connections between things, or for those unusually simple
questions that children ask. Why is the sky dark at night? Why is the sky blue?
Why are there only two sexes? How big could a tree grow? How does a photocopier
work? Why don't we fall through the floor? Choose your
subject carefully. Be original. The popularisation of evolutionary biology, quantum
physics, cosmology, and consciousness is pretty well worked over. Why not be different?
The modern world surrounds us with machines about whose
workings most people have little or no knowledge. Why not enlighten them? Most
of the population take an interest in sport without noticing its science: the
flight of the frisbee, the spin and swing of a cricket ball, the swerve of footballs
and golfballs. The Olympic Games are coming up; have you
ever wondered why high-jumpers use the Fosbury Flop, which weight-lifter is pound-for-pound
(sorry kilogram-for-kilogram) the strongest, or how ice-skaters manage to spin
so fast? Closer to home, how many people know how their
television works or why a hot iron removes the creases from their clothes? On
to the kitchen, where you could develop a taste for the chemistry of cooking.
Next stop, try the bathroom, where the chemical mysteries of perfumes, lathers
and soaps, together with the acoustics of singing in the shower and the meteorology
of condensation, should keep you busy for a while. Still
stuck? Out to the garden for the subtleties of the greenhouse and the symmetries
of snowflakes and icicles. After all this you're going
to need a stiff drink. But have you ever wondered why wine is so . . . Sorry,
now it's your turn. Professor John D. Barrow is professor
of Astronomy at the University of Sussex. His latest book, The Artful Universe,
a scientist's look at human culture and creativity, is published on November
23 by Oxford University Press. |