September 18th

In reading chapter 4 of A Field Guide for Science Writers, I had a few thoughts. My first one was that if we are using an AB/BC format for writing, whether it is in sentence form, paragraph form, or story form, aren't we cheating? I feel as if having a format in any type of writing is highly restrictive and disrespectful to writers as a whole. I want my reader to be able to understand what I'm writing about not because I repeat the last word or phrase of one sentence at the beginning of the text, but because I know what I am talking about to the point that I am able to tell it as a story rather than a list of factoids. This moves me nicely on to the next thought I had while reading this chapter. I love the idea of writing difficult and complex topics as if they are a story. People understand stories, they are part of the foundation of our civilization, so why not write one. Instead of focusing on being able to put my story in an "easy" format for a reader to understand, I think I will focus on becoming a good story-teller of all stories.

Carl Sagan opens up "The Demon-Haunted World" with "[Science] is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking." This, to me, tells me that if we tell science stories like we tell other stories, as writers, we won't have to try so hard to write for the lay-men. When we plug our science writings into an understandable format, we push it into a body of knowledge. When we tell it as a story, we relate to the general population's way of thinking.

Lewis Wolpert claims that "science often explains the familiar in terms of the unfamiliar." When we witness a apple falling out of a tree, we aren't surprised or perplexed. Most likely, we ignore the action and move along with our day. For a scientist, they see that apple fall, and they see gravity and aerodynamics and friction. The scientist assigns numbers and velocities and directions of acceleration specific to that apple. Everyone sees science every day, but how we interpret that science and how we describe that science sets the scientist apart from the writer. The scientist will explain what happens in nature with an intended audience of other scientists. The writer needs to interpret that information and reformat it for their audience of humanity. For the lay-man. For the non-scientist. In this way, stories make the most sense. As a writer, I am uncomfortable doing science writing in a format that some scientist, at some point in time, created so that the average citizen could understand what happening in nature. I refuse to belittle my writing to a formula. I would much rather tell a story about why the apple fell from the tree and how the forces that took place on the apple made it turn and tousle between the tree and the ground.