I didn’t attend my PhD convocation. I barely finished the degree itself, as I was struck by a deep depression in my last year of research. This was exacerbated by my family doctor prescribing an antidepressant that had seriously unpleasant side effects, which she then suggested I stop taking immediately. The withdrawal symptoms lasted for…
The top disaster news in the past few weeks has been major flooding in communities across Canada. From New Brunswick to Alberta and British Columbia, it’s been a wet spring for Canadians across the country. Here in BC, the city of Grand Forks was inundated with the most water they’ve seen since 1948. Other communities…
The past few months have been pretty busy. Then suddenly it all stopped, with the exception of one book review for Science. As I wrote last week, I’d been having a ‘high’ mood, so I was able to juggle a couple of deadlines and projects. But, as always happens after a high, I’ve now fallen…
Earlier this year, American writer Dani Shapiro published a piece at LitHub about balancing social media and writing. She recounts how she sent out a newsletter about a new show she’d created on Facebook – and then received an email not intended for her that said “Is she for fucking real?” Like most writers, Shapiro…
Tone is a tricky part of science communication. In a previous post I’ve touched on issues of tone in science communication and how they relate to scientific accuracy. In this post I look at how we communicate climate science in particular, and whether we should scare people or give them hope. Should we write about…
