
14
Jan 1998, The Daily Telegraph Give
us your golden nuggets
Two
leading science writers launch Britain's most prestigious science writing competition,
backed by BASF and The Daily Telegraph Peter Atkins suggests three rules
for writing that can popularise any science, even one as tough as chemistry. By
Peter Atkins 
THE
Golden Nugget is a casino in Las Vegas. I was there recently, and did not find
it particularly to my taste. The attitude that drives people to gamble is the
antithesis of the motivation for entering science: get rich overnight without
effort and at the whim of chance. How much more likely it is, when gambling, to
end up poorer through the capriciousness of probability. Science
is a serious, demanding expedition of discovery with guaranteed rewards that last
a lifetime. Science provides intellectual enrichment that shows up the tawdriness
of the quick fixes of imposter pursuits. That is not to say science does not have
its golden nuggets. Indeed,
some of the best science writing has been prospector science, where the writer
pans in the river of professional knowledge and comes up with a nugget of pure
gold to share with those taking the time to read. There are two types of science
writing: the focused, where the goal is the nugget, and the synoptic, which surveys
this most noble of humanity's pursuits and sets it in the intellectual framework
of the time. The focused-nugget
approach identifies an item of fascination, shares it, and sets it in the general
framework of progress. The global surveyor sees that science is slowly, cautiously
and reliably adding to our awareness of the human condition, and shares that vision.
There is abundant scope for both approaches. The central point is to be convinced
that one has a whacking good story to tell - one that, given a receptive mind,
could influence someone's attitude for a lifetime. Everyone who gives advice to
aspiring science writers can come up with three golden nuggets of communication,
and mine are as follows. Above all, enthrall your audience. One
of the best ways to harpoon other minds is to identify a topic that unexpectedly
but delightfully illuminates the everyday. The biochemist Albert Szent-Georgi
once said the art of doing science was to notice what everyone else had seen,
but to think what no one else had thought. When writing about science, the aim
is to add to the joy of being alive by illuminating the everyday with the piercing
light of scientific insight. The
second nugget is to respect the intelligence of your audience. Given sufficient
patience in both writer and reader, there is no concept of science that cannot
be conveyed. Indeed, there is a special challenge in science, where the most deeply
illuminating advances are being made in the realms of the most abstract. Anyone
can make a hummingbird into an attractive, absorbing and illuminating tale; the
arch-challenge is to make something as abstract as string theory just as palatable.
The third nugget is to write well and absorbingly. There is no better and more
pleasurable preparation for enthralling writing than to read widely. The skill
of articulation in literature is exactly what is needed in scientific writing.
I find that one way to achieve
clear writing is to delete what previously one had admired. Destruction is an
essential component of creation: erase fat, erase purple, erase unnecessary excursion.
Also, listen to your editor and especially to your harshest critics: they are
the true creators, the choreographers of style and exposition. Most
of my own attempts to convey science to the general public have been in chemistry,
a particularly demanding subject to communicate and one that few authors take
on. That is despite chemistry being the central science, the basis of a major
part of industry and agriculture, and the pivot of the world's health. There is
no other subject that deserves better attention from aspiring communicators. Although
chemistry's kingdom is the material world, its language and concepts lie like
sun-scorched bones in the Sahara of abstraction. Scratch a chemist, and out pour
atoms, molecules, electrons, energy and entropy, not the full-bodied red blood
of wholesome explanation. It
is hard to comprehend any explanation in chemistry without having to draw on what,
to the general public, appear to be abstractions. Because of that sense of the
abstract, many people - often with bad memories of lessons at school - have an
almost innate sense that chemistry is something they will never understand. The
public expresses its unconscious fear of chemistry by leaving books on the subject,
with a few exceptions, largely unsold and unread. YOU have the opportunity to
change that. First, the
public must be shown that there is a fascinating store of information that, through
every material object, every pharmaceutical and cosmetic preparation, every beverage
and foodstuff, every aspect of our bodies, is an aspect of chemistry's domain.
Then you have to show that chemistry's explanations are easy to comprehend, that
atoms and molecules are just as real as hummingbirds. It
is hard to convey science by words alone. That is particularly true of chemistry,
where the action of a drug or the texture of a fabric may depend on the shape
of a molecule, the arrangement of its atoms. Computer graphics are opening up
whole new methods of understanding and communication in science, and a well-selected
image can break through the fog of incomprehension and shine out with its message.
But even if, for whatever reason, graphic images are not allowed and you have
space to spend 1,000 words, verbal images can take their place. Indeed,
the challenge of verbal communication of a sharply held image is a succinct summary
of what you have to do to communicate effectively. Be sure you hold the image
in your mind sharp and clear; then express it as best you can in the best of words.
And so we return to the true golden nugget, one of which we can all be proud.
Above all, remember that,
in whatever field you choose to write, you have the opportunity, through words,
to open the eyes of those who have not yet seen. You may also encourage the young
into a career - or at least an attitude - that will give them an absorbing delight
for life. Peter Atkins is
professor of chemistry at Oxford and fellow of Lincoln College. His books include
The Periodic Kingdom and Creation Revisited.
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