A course in science writing can include instruction on everything from embargoes to statistics. Follow this link for suggestions.
The NASW quarterly newsletter ScienceWriters provides a wealth of material that addresses many of the topics below. NASW maintains an archive of ScienceWriters that's available to NASW members. (Requires NASW member login and password.) Have a topic to add to this list? Send us email.
Journals: their role, power, and internal politics:
- Altman L (1996). The Ingelfinger rule, embargoes, and journal peer review-part 1. Lancet; 347: 1382-86.
- Altman L (1996a). The Ingelfinger rule, embargoes, and journal peer review-part 2. Lancet; 347: 1459-63.
- "Seminar Addresses Media Coverage of Journal Articles: Invited review of Columbia University School of Journalism's Seminar "Breakthrough? The science and politics of medical journalism," CBE Views (Council of Biology Editors), Vol. 22, No 4, p. 117. (1999).
- "The Hippocratic Wars," by Ellen Ruppell Shell; The New York Times, June 28, 1998.
- The Aftermath of the JAMA Fiasco: Medicine, Politics, and the Scope of Medical Journals, by Leigh Turner, PhD and Jennifer Gold; The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Embargoes
- Journal Embargoes: So Often Impeached Yet Never Convicted by Howard J. Lewis (ScienceWriters, Winter 98/99) (Note: This site requires an NASW login and password)
- "Wall Street wants your peer review."
- See Altman's articles above.
Ingelfinger rule
See Altman's Lancet articles.
Peer-review
See Altman's Lancet articles.
Statistics
- Statistics Every Writer Should Know.
- Stats (A newsletter critiquing the media's reporting of stats. Controversial because of an alleged conservative bias.)
Astroturf organizations (Seemingly grass-roots organizations with a cause that are actually sponsored and/or run by a corporate entity)
- "Grass Roots Seeded by Drugmaker Schering-Plough Uses 'Coalitions' to Sell Costly Treatment," Washington Post.
- Astroturf Troopers: How the polluters' lobby is using phony front groups and New World Order wackos to attack the Kyoto global warming treaty", Mother Jones.
- "Public Relations' Role in Manufacturing Artificial Grass Roots Coalitions," Public Relations Quarterly.
- "Rethinking the Think Tanks: How industry-funded "experts" twist the environmental debate," Sierra Magazine.
Corporate influence over scientific research
- "The Kept University," The Atlantic
- "Failure of HIV Therapy Pits Researchers vs. Drug Maker," Harvard University Focus
- "Pharma Buys a Conscience," The American Prospect.
How to cover a scientific meeting
"Getting the Scoop at Scientific Meetings," BioMedNet
Fact-checking
- "Just Checking," by Jay Matthews, The New Republic, May 18, 1992, p.14
- "Perils and Pitfalls of science reporting," by Stu Borman, Chemical and Engineering News, Jan 26, 1998, p. 37
- "To send or not to send," by John Dudley Miller
