A different kind of entry

First, a spot of news.

For two weeks starting Monday, I will finally be at the Science Museum in London, learning the ropes and hopefully doing some preliminary work ahead of my fieldwork. I will attempt to do a daily journal podcast entry, which will mostly be for my own benefit, but you are welcome to join the ride.

Secondly, working with science communication in museums, and despite not being directly linked to Wellcome (for now at least – one is allowed future aims), I take an active interest in the connections between arts and sciences, and how these can encourage more peoples’ interest in the sciences. Alejandro Guijarro has, since 2010, been photographing the blackboards of quantum physicists from around the world. Here are some of the photographs, borrowed from his website.

 

As an exercise in communicating research – the process of creating science – these boards provide the following at face value:

• dents from years in service/chalk marks deep enough to not rub out completely – showing that science is a process aiming for gains in the long term
• parts that are rubbed out and re-started – even professionals get it wrong sometimes
• doodles – we all get restless
• pristine work – the final QED moment

Exhibited together, perhaps they can counteract the idea that science is still an elitist domain only for a certain type of mind, while demonstrating that perseverance to undertake the trial-and-improvement work will go the furthest.

Lunchtime Seminar: Tuesday 7th May 2013

Lunchtime Seminar: Tuesday 7th May 2013.

Where are all the adults?
Engaging publics in nuclear physics in museums in the UK and China. 

Jia-Ou Song

University of Manchester

(Shameless shout-out to self.)

I do apologise for absence – fresh posts forthcoming shortly.

It Happened HERE

Det hände här is a documentary series that I severely recommend to everybody. It is in Swedish, but in the 21st Century, surely there is a way to work around that little foible?

Before you start complaining, I shall explain its greatness.

The concept: Three historians travel to small places to find big history. Every place, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, will have, at some point, witnessed dramatic fates and life-changing events.

The premise: Three historians, and a television presenter, travel to small, lesser known settlements/towns/villages around Sweden in search of local history. The historians are pitted against each other, and have three days to do research, at the end of which the local population vote for which of the newly unearthed histories they like the best.

The (hypothetical – as everybody responds differently) result: Short term, the winning piece of history will have the honour of giving its name to a local landmark; in this first series there is a roundabout, a bridge, a promenade path and a water tower in the pot. In the long term, the programme wishes to show audiences that there are interesting and dramatic histories everywhere, provided one is willing to search for them.

Personally, I think this is a great idea (apologies for being idiosyncratic). It could be treated as a geography-based version of Who Do You Think You Are? with the benefit of being in the public interest, and engage more people in history. Failing that, perhaps it could at the very least prevent the following map, or at least manage to attribute more meaningful tags to the conurbations of our fair isles.

From Buzzfeed.

“Email me at batmanfly@…”

It is this old nugget about self-presentation again. Whilst browsing for contact details for an academic, I passed by this intro on an “official website” of a colleague of theirs. Never mind that further down the page was an extensive publishing record and many scholarship awards – and I know, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” – but, batmanfly?

A small opinion piece about big opinion pieces.

The full stop in the title is intended, as I have been told that it sounds more assured than without.

Truth is, I am not very good at being opinionated in public*. People keep insisting that it is easy, so perhaps I am simply not a natural. This is a massive handicap, considering I am a PhD student, where it is expected of me to form opinions on literature that I read, and analyses of data that I collect. This does not mean that I am without opinion. I think that, while the projected HS2 railway that will serve London-Birmingham-Manchester could be a good idea – mainly because the current Virgin Trains services between MCR-LDN offer rather… demanding levels of customer service, and also if it allows the de-crowding of the capital – I do not approve of any alleged tweaking of the law** that took place for the ruling to be passed. I dislike overly flowery language in big tomes of importance to my research – because it takes just that little bit longer to process the information beyond the superficial – despite sometimes being guilty of the crime myself. I think it is sweet when people try to bowl other people over with big words and complicated grammar structures, but I don’t buy it. I think Queen Elizabeth II is cool, but otherwise don’t care much for the Royal Family. I am not a fan of Thomas Kuhn’s writing because I like a bit of narrative in the things that I read. I like wind-farms and the occasional piece of 60s architecture. I think nuclear power is the way to go for the time being, and that it is a shame that there is a need for an International Women’s Day.

Off the coast of the Netherlands, summer 2012.

Mind you, now I have just noticed a relatively significant increase in the number of followers of this blog, and am in two minds about whether or not I want to weather my laundry at all.

What was I saying again? Opinions.

Why are my opinions stymied?

The clear-cut answer and example: a fear of “doing it wrong”. Next to me on my desk is a fascinating-looking book*** that I am about to read and review. The author of this book is one of my supervisors. While I am aware that one of the reasons an academic may want to write a book is to either introduce new discourse into the field, or inject new arguments into old debates, this does not stop me from worrying about whether I will get the wrong end of the stick, and interpret their writing wrongly. To summarise, I am concerned I will offend the supervisor, or embarrass myself with my stupid opinions. To remedy this, I am telling myself that perhaps my point-of-view is, after all, valid as a particular interpretation of this book, and could still provide a teeny tiny insight into how the book might be received by an interested member of the audience. Teeny tiny. No big opinions here. Move along.

The more abstract example: as an early-career researcher, and a still relatively junior member of society (what with the ageing population and all), I sometimes feel like my opinion does not matter. There are always people who are better read, and more informed, who can provide a better opinion. Then again, we all read different collections of literature, and take different types of data, leading to, hopefully, some measure of expertise in our pinprick on the academic map. But what if we simply are not that gregarious? Is it then our fault that we chose an academic route, where we need to work up our moxie to give everybody a piece of our information-overloaded minds? Chances are that we are brewing away in private, over-thinking an argument far beyond those with the loudest voices, and any resulting opinion remains at the manky bottom of the laundry pile.

Thank goodness I have a belief in the stonking greatness of my project to forget all about this, some of the time.

Now, I would like to apologise for my opinions (except I’m not really sorry), especially to those who may have joined up for a nice bit of coffee-break science communication chatter (opinions!) or funny insight into my project (opinions and focus groups! Oh my!). I can only hope for your patience.

*where “in public” means occasions where others, likely strangers, will hear.

**”HS2 ruling a ‘victory’ despite unlawful compensation move” BBC News, 15 March 2013

***Helen Rees Leahy, Museum Bodies : The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing, Ashgate 2012 – more about this one later.

Vanessa Heggie and Matthew Cobb talk about science-blogging

Jumbled up notes, but quite useful. All thoughts and ideas belong to the persons in the title, unless otherwise stated.

1. Write. 600-800 words once or twice a week to begin with. Shows commitment and consistency.
2. Worry not if there are no visitors – you are building a portfolio.
3. Get into a dialogue with the people in the field you want to work with.
4. Find science communication folk on twitter. Or better, find their communities.
5. Contacts are important, but keep an eye out for essay competitions, blog vacancies, etc.
6. Mix things up, opinion pieces and factual pieces, one is harder than the other, but it’s all practice.
7. Writing about your research can veer into simply-another-form-of-academic-writing; book reviews, or making-of blogs can include research, like a diary, but be more relaxed and allow you to showcase fun trivia that you find, that may not place in academic papers.
8. Cats are good.
9. You could take on a twitter alter-ego, e.g. write as an interesting historical character.
10. Read and comment on other peoples’ blogs, it’s just as big a part being one of the community.
11. Retweet anything you want, even if you think “all my followers follow X already”. In all likelihood, there will be at least one follower who doesn’t.
12. Find your own voice. Do not be an ersatz-sci-commer-that-you like.
13. Be brave and blog under your own name. Or at least blog under a constant pseudonym. Pick a suitable one.
14. Co-blog. Takes the pressure off overall output, but puts pressure on in the sense that you need to pull your load.
15. The sharing and readership of posts may be better an indicator of reception than the quantity or quality of comments.
16. Pop-sci and topical sciene unsurprisingly get more views. Troll-bait will get trolls. No surprises there either.
17. Bear in mind that sometimes people do not feel qualified enough to leave a comment. This links into the way you pitch your posts. Relaxed, quirky posts may fetch comments just because they invite them.
18. Blogs are allowed to change theme. Usually with the author’s circumstances. No biggie.
19. Established bloggers sometimes look for relief bloggers. If you have a thematic, well-written piece, it may just be worth emailing, and swapping the work for the exposure.
20. Vi Hart’s video-blog, recommended. Vlogs and podcasts can be good if you are interested, but you cannot skim through them, which is what most people do. (Personal note here: they can be good to insert into a blog every now and again just for a change in format and bring a bit of novelty. Perhaps your reader will like it. But they are more time consuming – you will have to script them, even an al-fresco pod will need to be “written” and edited.)
21. If you want to try the book-route, and have an idea, get an agent first! Popsci books are still a niche field, it is, so far (never say never), difficult to make money off them. Blogs will provide an audience for your book.
22. You don’t have to know about…stuff… to write a blog. You can write a blog about you finding out about something or somebody. If you’ve chosen a person though, aim for somebody who is dead. Living people will findit creepy. And frankly, you do know stuff – you’re an expert at being a student.
23. It’s perfectly acceptable to have different identities to your co-bloggers, it would be weird not to. As long as you have a common theme, it could be welcome to hear from different voices.
24. As long as your byline is constant, readers do not necessarily look out for your affiliations. At all. A relevant blog can be good for the job, if not, the employers will likely be indifferent.
25. If you are aiming for a writing job – a bad blog is better than no blog. (Where “bad” means boring or amateurish – not libellous and fictional. Well, unless you like to communicate your science through sci-fi adventures, in which case, make that clear.)
26. Learn about writing from other blogs. The structure is free to take.
27. Nerdblogs always find their readers. Always. You may have a niche audience, but they will read it all. As long as it’s well-written.

This week’s pick’n'mix: thoughts on academic competition further up the food-chain, tumblrs

Well, I wrote this when the actual news was topical, but the underlying reasons will probably always be in season, so!…

Live-blog of the University of Leicester press conference of their unearthing of Dick the Third (said affectionately).

Around the 11.10am mark there is a print-screen of a twitter-conversation between Mary Beard and some other followers of the news-story. Prof Beard says that she does not understand how this is important or contributes to scholarship. Personally, I thought that the whole event contributed a rise in profile as well as a certain amount of trust in the fields of history, archaeology, and forensics. Academic pursuits aside, it was a good piece of research communication, which is often valued by scholars of all levels of seniority these days. Anyhoo, each to their own…

…or is it the aforementioned sour grapes talking?

On another note, Financial Times now has a tumblr! It has been interesting to see different media organisations taking up the what-I-call tumblr challenge of using the platform to their own means, as opposed to the now-stereotypical “fangirls, cats, and sarcy comments”-blogs (which I unashamedly love). FT’s tumblr does, as one might expect, feature quite a hefty dose of self-propaganda, but the odd historical (“vintage”) clippings are charming, and could be useful for those who want to read just-a-little-bit, without paying for archival access.

Speaking of tumblrs, here are two blogs that will sympathise with your research-based traumas, trials, and tribulations, and another “special” one for us TAs.

I will finish on a question: I am about to embark on a serious piece of fieldwork for the first time ever – i.e. it involves an ethics form – which I was going to document: might people be interested in that?