I'm having a grand time in my science writing class. I have decided that science writing is a field in which the practitioners get dessert first. However
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Dear Celestial Law: Have you heard of Leon Svirsky? I didn't think so. He was a noted science editor who wrote a few books on the side. Today his published work snores in oblivion. He is remembered principally from Isaac Asimov's account of him in his autobiography. Svirsky edited Asimov's THE INTELLIGENT MAN'S GUIDE TO SCIENCE with a heavy blue pencil, which infuriated Asimov. He ultimately submitted, but by the time the third edition of the book was due, he successfully stood off Svirsky
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That's a big fat pain. I'm sorry, Lori. You're writer enough to know how to aim your stories for your audience. If the editor can't see that, then she's not that competent of an editor. Meh. I have no advice. Only sympathy.
One problem is that she hasn't had us write enough and hasn't seen enough by me to be a competent judge of my ability. She thanked heaven after I handed in the rough draft that I could at least write grammatically. Well, duh. Another is that I've been very clear about the day job being related to writing, but not about my extracurricular activities. This is not a fiction class, after all, and I didn't want to sound like I was going to try to pull rank. Sometimes I get so excited to be discussing writing that it's pretty obvious I'm not a total newbie, but I haven't gone into specifics.
I would just trust her feedback more if she knew some physics and math.
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Thanks for the suggestion. It's not a bad one. :-) The math guy is German, but got his Ph.D. at Temple.
I should check into that.
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One problem is that she hasn't had us write enough and hasn't seen enough by me to be a competent judge of my ability. She thanked heaven after I handed in the rough draft that I could at least write grammatically. Well, duh. Another is that I've been very clear about the day job being related to writing, but not about my extracurricular activities. This is not a fiction class, after all, and I didn't want to sound like I was going to try to pull rank. Sometimes I get so excited to be discussing writing that it's pretty obvious I'm not a total newbie, but I haven't gone into specifics.
I would just trust her feedback more if she knew some physics and math.
Reply
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