Professional Science Writing?

[The Lone Ranger]

I noticed an advertisement in one of my favorite local independent newspapers recently, in which they announced that they're looking for an entry-level reporter. I figured, "Why the heck not?" and just sent them a letter of interest, along with a writing sample. I pointed out in the cover letter that I'm quite well-trained in the sciences, and that I like to write and teach. I figured that gives me a *big* advantage over your typical newspaper reporter when it comes to science-related stories, since your typical newspaper reporter is -- as far as I can tell -- almost completely scientifically illiterate.



A little bit of background information might be in order here.

I'm a doctoral candidate in Zoology right now, hoping to finish up and graduate in May. To put it bluntly, I'm sick and tired of certain aspects of academia.

Don't get me wrong: I love to teach, and I even fancy that I'm fairly good at it. A lot of my students have said so, anyway.

But that's just the problem: I'm so tired of the amazingly-common attitude in academics that teaching is a waste of time. Is this as prevalent in the liberal arts? It's certainly a depressingly common attitude in the sciences. I don't know how many times I've been told in my graduate career that people with real talent shouldn't "waste their time" in teaching.

After I got my master's, I taught for several years at various colleges and universities, including a small, liberal arts college that I simply loved. I got up every morning full of enthusiasm, looking forward to going to work and dealing with bright, motivated young people and discussing all sorts of fascinating things with them. Of course, since I didn't have a doctorate, the school wouldn't hire me on any basis other than as an adjunct, despite the fact that they kept telling me what a simply wonderful teacher I was, and how much the students loved my classes. I eventually got tired of not having any benefits, and not knowing whether I was going to be employed from semester to semester, and so decided to go back to school for my doctorate.

The attitude I encountered as a M.S. student -- that teaching is a waste of time -- has only become more pronounced as I've made my way through the doctoral program. Surely, not every university sees things this way, but the point has been drilled into me over and over again that schools value you for your ability to bring in grant money, not for any teaching ability you might have. Indeed, one of my favorite professors was refused tenure precisely because the administration felt he was devoting too much time to teaching, and not enough to research and grant-writing.


Now me, I'd be very happy indeed to find some nice, small private liberal-arts college where I could settle in and teach. Of course I'd keep up with the relevant literature in my field, but I might or might not feel the need to publish "X" number of papers per year just to prove that I can do science.


Which brings me to another peeve. I remember being told when I started grad school that I should find "one species of organism to which you'll devote the rest of your life." That is so not me!

I understand all too well that the modern sciences have become such broad fields that the only way to stand out as a "successful" scientist is to specialize, specialize, SPECIALIZE! -- but that's just not me. I'm just not a specialist by nature; I'd much rather know a little bit about a lot than a lot about a little. So what if that means I'll never win a Nobel Prize? Who cares? Certainly not me!


As much as I hate to say it, there is some truth to the claims that an awful lot of scientists behave more like a sort of secular "priesthood" than anything else. How often have I heard colleagues claim that teaching and "popularizing" of science (as in the writings of Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould) are beneath them somehow, something that "real scientists" don't waste their time on? Far too many times, to be sure.

And yet, these same people complain indignantly about the scientific illiteracy of the general public, and wonder why so many people take the Creationists and their ilk seriously! Well gee, maybe if practicing scientists can't be bothered to explain what science is to the general public, and what it is that scientists do, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised that the general public has little understanding of what science is and how it's distinguished from pseudoscience.

Just a thought there.



<Ahem> Where was I? Oh yes.

A fellow grad student recently quit the program in disgust, for many of the reasons that I've laid out above, and she's hoping to earn a living as a free-lance science writer. The more I think about it, the more I envy her.

As Milady has pointed out, Community Colleges are always looking to hire adjunct teachers, so the chances are good that I could keep teaching anyway, even if I did decide to be a writer.

I have less than a year to go here, if all goes well. So, even if I were to be offered a nice position as a writer, I wouldn't just give up on the degree after having spent so much time working for it. But I have to admit, if I were to be offered such a position, and I could only do one or the other, I'd have to think about it long and hard at this point. After all, competition for teaching positions in those small, liberal arts colleges is pretty intense, and there's no guarantee that I'd find a job at all, much less in a part of the country where I'd like to live.


So, any thoughts?

Of course, I'm not a trained journalist, and I'm well-aware that the chances that this paper will offer me a job are doubtless very slim. So I'm not counting on it or anything.

But does anyone know about the availability of such jobs? Is it something I should be seriously looking into, ya think?

I'm more curious than anything at this point, but recent events have got me thinking.


Cheers,

Michael

[pzmyers]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

But that's just the problem: I'm so tired of the amazingly-common attitude in academics that teaching is a waste of time. Is this as prevalent in the liberal arts? It's certainly a depressingly common attitude in the sciences. I don't know how many times I've been told in my graduate career that people with real talent shouldn't "waste their time" in teaching.

This is definitely not the case at a liberal arts college. Where I am, they push both research and teaching heavily, but teaching is first priority and research gets the scraps of time you have left over.

After I got my master's, I taught for several years at various colleges and universities, including a small, liberal arts college that I simply loved. I got up every morning full of enthusiasm, looking forward to going to work and dealing with bright, motivated young people and discussing all sorts of fascinating things with them. Of course, since I didn't have a doctorate, the school wouldn't hire me on any basis other than as an adjunct, despite the fact that they kept telling me what a simply wonderful teacher I was, and how much the students loved my classes. I eventually got tired of not having any benefits, and not knowing whether I was going to be employed from semester to semester, and so decided to go back to school for my doctorate.
Which brings me to another peeve. I remember being told when I started grad school that I should find "one species of organism to which you'll devote the rest of your life." That is so not me!

Adjuncting is the devil. My wife was stuck in that for several years, and it was jarring that she was teaching more classes than I was, but getting paid far less and with almost nonexistent benefits. It is a temptation that afflicts way too many universities, who take advantage of people who love the academic life to essentially rob them blind.

I understand all too well that the modern sciences have become such broad fields that the only way to stand out as a "successful" scientist is to specialize, specialize, SPECIALIZE! -- but that's just not me. I'm just not a specialist by nature; I'd much rather know a little bit about a lot than a lot about a little. So what if that means I'll never win a Nobel Prize? Who cares? Certainly not me!

There's a lot to be said for the model systems approach. I've been reading Wallace Arthur's Biased Embryos and Evolution, and he has a cute analogy. Say you're trying to dig a very deep hole. You start shoveling, and then you take a break. When you resume work, do you keep digging in the same place, or do you start a new hole?

That said, one of the best talks I saw at a recent meeting was on signalling pathways in choanoflagellates. While getting depth by digging on single model systems is essential, there's always going to be a niche for people who exploit that deep data and diversify.

And yet, these same people complain indignantly about the scientific illiteracy of the general public, and wonder why so many people take the Creationists and their ilk seriously! Well gee, maybe if practicing scientists can't be bothered to explain what science is to the general public, and what it is that scientists do, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised that the general public has little understanding of what science is and how it's distinguished from pseudoscience.

We're trying. That's one of the motivations for my website and this is other little thing I'm affiliated with, the Panda's Thumb.

As for advice, I really recommend avoiding the adjunct trap. It's endless, insecure, and low paying, and I don't know anyone who isn't miserable about it. It's like temping. It's not a career. You can't settle for keeping one foot in academia -- it's all or nothing. But you'd probably be very happy if you could land a tenure track position at a liberal arts university.

Journalism sounds like a better alternative. We desperately need competent journalists who actually have some integrity and intelligence (yeah, I'm one of the many who are increasingly disgusted with our media), and someone who could bring science to the lay public would be a valuable asset. I'm afraid, though, that while I can see the virtues of such a career, I'm completely ignorant of the realities of getting that kind of job.

[Roland98]

You sound a lot like me. I really like to teach, and thought long and hard about looking for a position back in New England at one of the better liberal arts colleges there rather than a more research-oriented position, but in my field, I'd be hurting myself by doing that (since I'm an epidemiologist rather than a basic biologist, and as you can probably imagine, epidemiology isn't a subject usually addressed at most of those colleges).

Which brings me to another peeve. I remember being told when I started grad school that I should find "one species of organism to which you'll devote the rest of your life." That is so not me!

Me either! Which is one reason I took the postdoc I did. The group I work with is all about interdisciplinary research--we have basic biologists, MD's, mathematical modelers, immunologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, and even a few random history professors and the like, and everyone puts their collective heads together to write grants and analyze projects. And while most of the focus is on a few select organisms, a lot of the basic procedures can be applied to almost any microbe. This is what I'm hoping to do with the position I'm taking at U of Iowa; work with a bunch of people and apply some of the same techniques to different organisms. I definitely don't want to get stuck looking at one organism or one protein for the rest of my career. (Well, or doing the same techniques, but those seem to evolve pretty rapidly as we get new technology; and I have a lot of knowledge in some areas that won't even be tapped right away, because I simply don't have collaborators yet).

How often have I heard colleagues claim that teaching and "popularizing" of science (as in the writings of Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould) are beneath them somehow, something that "real scientists" don't waste their time on? Far too many times, to be sure.

That's also something I'd like to do down the line. I really like to write as well, and have a lot of respect for both scientists who can write for the general public, as well as journalists who can make science interesting (and get the facts straight!) One thing that cemented my interest in infectious diseases was reading Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague," geez, about a decade ago now. Re-reading it now, I see a few errors and know a few places where she's, er, "embellished," but it's still a damn good piece of work. I know a lot of students here in the MPH program, and ones I spoke with interested in infectious diseases at U of Iowa, have cited her work as one reason they became involved in the area, so I definitely realize the value of "popularizers."

Anyway, do I have a point here? Probably not. But there are definitely places out there where you can do more teaching than research--hell, just take a look at the webpages for the schools listed in US News and World Report's "Best Liberal Arts Colleges"--many of them prize teaching over research. The journalist angle seems interesting too. Are you affiliated with any professional societies? I know the American Society for Microbiology used to have a fellowship whereby a postdoctoral scientist worked as a journalist for awhile (details here, but I'm not sure they're continuing the program). Others may have something similar.

In the meantime, before I write my groundbreaking treatise on some area of infectious disease, I've been writing for this series, which also allows me to get some extra writing under my belt that's for the public rather than scientists. So I really am enjoying playing researcher, teacher and writer at the moment.

[JoeP]

I think this is a great idea. I hope you get it. If not this one, apply the usual rule and try elsewhere - not getting the first 19 positions you apply for means nothing.

Teaching is undervalued in all age groups, not just undergrad/postgrad. It's a serious deficiency in society and I don't know where it comes from. You can't simply pay current teachers more because some of them are not that good (read: positively damaging to children) and are only there because the profession is not rated highly enough and it's easier to get in than it should be. I think I'm on a side-track here.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Which brings me to another peeve. I remember being told when I started grad school that I should find "one species of organism to which you'll devote the rest of your life." That is so not me!

I can think of one species worth devoting the rest of your life to. but few others.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

And yet, these same people complain indignantly about the scientific illiteracy of the general public, and wonder why so many people take the Creationists and their ilk seriously! Well gee, maybe if practicing scientists can't be bothered to explain what science is to the general public, and what it is that scientists do, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised that the general public has little understanding of what science is and how it's distinguished from pseudoscience.

Have to agree with you there

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Of course, I'm not a trained journalist, and I'm well-aware that the chances that this paper will offer me a job are doubtless very slim. So I'm not counting on it or anything.

I've never seen myself as a journalist but have participated in various writing communities. You might want to dip into http://groups.yahoo.com/group/workforwriters/. Like any, there's an "us and them" attitude among some journalists, but this doesn't usually affect the smaller publications.