6 Aug 1997, The Daily Telegraph

Creative flair defeats the clones

Science Editor Roger Highfield introduces the winners of The Daily Telegraph Nirex Young Science Writers competition.

DRUNKEN starlings, Dolly the cloned sheep, and why happy pigs taste better were among the vast spectrum of topics tackled by entrants to the nation's most prestigious science-writing competition, the winners of which are announced here today.

This year is the 10th in which we have encouraged young people to convey the excitement of scientific ideas and discovery through the Young Science Writers competition, backed by Nirex and The Daily Telegraph, with the support of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

This year's competition was launched last December after an encounter between two leading popularisers of science, Telegraph columnist Prof Steve Jones and Prof Stephen Jay Gould, the greatest living science essayist. Gould offered the following advice: know the basic rules; use the active voice, not the passive; choose the right subject; and never write down to the reader.

We received hundreds of entries. After two stages of filtering, an eminent panel gathered at Canary Wharf to decide on the finalists. There was, as ever, much hand-wringing about how to weigh up style, originality and substance against research, age and illustrations.

Both short-lists were unusually long, suggesting a higher standard than in previous years. Mary Archer was worried by one younger entrant's effort. "I thought it was quite good," said Michael Folger, Nirex chief executive. "Too good," she replied. "I just wondered if dad or mum had a hand in this."

The effort to weed out entries led to arguments among the judges, hardly surprising given their diverse interests. "That was my number one and I want to know why it was rejected," said Laura Garwin of 'Nature', defending one of the Dolly entries. "I rather liked that," protested Lewis Wolpert, chairman of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, when another candidate was rejected. "I'm not geared up for doing it like this," moaned Peter Briggs of the British Association.

Some entrants took on tough subjects, only to become heroic failures. Others were downright wrong. A few examples of plagiarism were found, and instantly rejected. We were fortunate the panel included David Concar, 'New Scientist''s deputy editor. He must have been flattered because two articles had lifted entire phrases and paragraphs from features he had written.

This problem bedevils all such competitions, but we comforted ourselves with the fact that at least our entrants were more creative than the newspaper competition winner that reproduced an Economist article word for word.

Other factors were taken into account by the judges. Good style, diligent research and meaty substance were rewarded. "The essence of science journalism is to explain the complicated stuff, not skim over it," said Garwin.