SCIEN CE WRITING

MUNICIPAL PRESS CONFERENCE

AUGUST 24, 2018
NAMBALAN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

JERIC NICHOLE R. AVIGUETERO

Teacher III
Speaker Judge
What is Science Writing?
❑ Science Writing involves writing of
environmental, scientific, technological and
innovative stories which may be written in
news, feature or scientific commentary
(opinion) style.
Scientific vs. journalistic writing
Forms of Science
Write-ups
• straight news
• news analysis
• news feature
• feature (may be a column piece)
• editorial (may be a column piece)
Straight news
News Analysis
News Feature
Feature
News Editorial
Common topics in Science Writing
• innovations/breakthroughs/discoveries (new
processes and products)
• health (diseases), nutrition and fitness
• environmental issues
• scientific concepts and theories
• weird science
What are expected
from a science writer?
❑ Science writers/journalists write to make
complicated scientific information easy to
understand for the common people (laymen).
Science writers must be:
• monster readers (and watchers and listeners
and explorers)
• incurably inquisitive
• near perfect perceptiveness (can easily
understand “stuffs”)
• “explain-aholics” (can make it easy for others
see what is not readily visible)
Quick science writing tips:
• Accuracy, Brevity, Clarity and Simplicity
• cite references/sources (!)
• humanize for relatability and involvement (to
easily connect to the readers’ sensibility)
• use graphics (!)
SUGGESTED STRUCTURE
FOR STRAIGHT NEWS
Lead – Include in this part the easily understandable
discovery, findings, or gist of the news

Identification of the source with elaboration of the lead

Quotation from the source

Explanation of the “how” and “why” of the lead

Inclusion of other relevant information

EXAMPLE OF STRAIGHT NEWS
SCIENCE ARTICLE
New bean varieties bred to beat baking climate

ROME - Scientists have bred 30 new varieties of

"heat-beating" beans designed to provide protein
for the world's poor in the face of global warming,
researchers announced on Wednesday.
EXAMPLE OF STRAIGHT NEWS
SCIENCE ARTICLE
Described as "meat of the poor", beans are a key
food source for more than 400 million people across
the developing world, but the area suitable for
growing them could drop 50 percent by 2050
because of global warming, endangering tens of
millions of lives, scientists said.
EXAMPLE OF STRAIGHT NEWS
SCIENCE ARTICLE
"Small farmers around the world are living on the
edge even during the best situation," Steve Beebe, a
senior bean researcher told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
"Climate change will force many to go hungry, or
throw in the towel, sell their land and move into
urban slums if they don't get support."
EXAMPLE OF STRAIGHT NEWS
SCIENCE ARTICLE
Many of the new varieties, bred to resist
droughts and higher temperatures, put traits from
less popular strains, such as the tepary bean, into
pinto, black, white and kidney beans.
Beebe said the new varieties were bred through
traditional crossing of different species, rather than
more controversial genetic engineering whereby
traits are artificially transferred.
EXAMPLE OF STRAIGHT NEWS
SCIENCE ARTICLE
The discovery was made after scientists examined
thousands of strains of beans stored in "gene banks".
They were actually searching for types of beans that could
withstand poor soils when they found genes to help
create the "heat-beater" beans, Beebe said.
Some of the 30 new types also have higher iron
content to help increase their nutritional value, CGIAR,
the research group backing the new discoveries, said in a
statement.
SUGGESTED STRUCTURE
FOR EDITORIAL
Introduction – Include the scientific issue and the opinion
jointly. Your opinion may be suggestive, conclusive, or
predictive.
Body – Lay out your evidences and explanations. One
evidence/explanation per paragraph. Include statistics,
current events, past records and events, and logical
reasons.
Conclusion – Suggest, recommend, or restate your
introduction.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE EDITORIAL
The Dwarf Planet Has Lost None of Its Allure

The demotion of Pluto in 2006 to “dwarf

planet” status posed a dilemma to lovers of
astronomy.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE EDITORIAL
Generations have grown up thinking of Pluto as a first-team
player in the solar system, made extra beguiling by its most
remote status. But confidence in the scientific method
demanded that such romantic notions be banished. If it is too
small and its solar orbit too wonky, the decision of
the International Astronomical Union must be respected. If Pluto
remained a planet, scores of parvenu planetoids deeper in space
might be eligible for upgrades. Rules are rules.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE EDITORIAL
Now Nasa’s New Horizons mission proves that Pluto has lost
none of its allure. Images that take hours to reach Earth,
travelling at the speed of light, enthrall and inspire. No less
impressive is the technical achievement of the mission: a probe
dispatched across 4.7bn km that arrives at its destination at the
appointed hour, with a precision rate of 99.9%.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE EDITORIAL
It is a reminder of what humanity can achieve with sufficient
patience, investment, collaborative effort and rational inquiry – a
tribute to scientific methodology at a time when enlightenment
values sometimes feel under siege. Better still, the data beamed
back by New Horizons, revealing a level of climatic and geological
sophistication previously unattributed to Pluto, raises hopes that
it may yet achieve promotion back to the first tier of planets. We
would heartily welcome that move. But only, of course, if the
evidence supports it.
SUGGESTED STRUCTURE
FOR SCIENCE FEATURE
1. Non-conventional lead
2. Lead Support– Include in this part the easily
understandable discovery, findings, or gist of the news
3. Identification of the source with elaboration of the
lead
4. Quotation from the source
5. Explanation of the “how” and “why” of the lead
6. Inclusion of other relevant information
EXAMPLE OF NON-CONVENTIONAL
LEADS FOR SCIENCE FEATURE
1. Nothing beats beans in withstanding climate
change. (striking statement)
2. A crop that grows amidst climate change?
Unbelievable! (exclamation)
3. If worst comes and everything dies due to climate
change, well, not the beans. (narration)
Staccato, question, contrast, simile and metaphor
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
Pluto Comes in Focus
Did you know that until very recently, the best images
we had of Pluto were just a few pixels in size? That's
right: those pictures you had in your head of what Pluto
looks like were mere artists' impressions. But that's all
changed.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
A piano-sized spacecraft named New Horizons has
whizzed past the icy dwarf planet after a journey of more
than nine years and 5 billion kilometers.
Its close encounter has already replaced those tiny
pixilated images with new ones revealing mystery dark
spots, a light heart-shaped patch and a range of icy
mountains.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
New Horizons has now sent back an initial set of
images from its closest pass by Pluto, the first of which
shows a range of icy mountains close to Pluto's equator,
with peaks rising up to 3,500 meters.
But with no impact craters visible in the region, it's
believed the mountains formed no more than 100 million
years ago.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
"This is one of the youngest surfaces we've ever seen
in the solar system," says Jeff Moore of the New Horizons
imaging team.
Scientists and space geeks alike are excited about
what's been seen, and awaiting the release of more
extensive higher-resolution imagery.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
At its closest, New Horizons passed within 12,500
kilometers of Pluto's surface, travelling at 50,000
kilometers an hour.
"Nothing like this has been done in a quarter century
and nothing like this is planned by any space agency ever
again," says Alan Stern, principal investigator on the New
Horizons mission.
EXAMPLE OF SCIENCE FEATURE
His NASA colleague John Grunsfeld calls the flyby "truly a
hallmark in human history".
Thank you.