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Exchanges: 10 years of essays on scientific communication
Between 1998 and 2011, I contributed a series of more than 60 articles to the Exchange, newsletter of the Scientific Communication Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). For more than 10 of those years, I edited the newsletter.
In this book, I’ve gathered more than 50 of these articles together, supplemented by relevant articles on scientific communication that appeared elsewhere. Each article is followed by an afterword that summarizes how my opinions have changed since the article first appeared or any new thoughts inspired by looking back at the articles.
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Description of the book
Hart, G. 2011. Exchanges: 10 years of essays on scientific communication. Diaskeuasis Publishing, Pointe-Claire, Que.
- Printed edition: 242 pages, ISBN 978-0-9783227-7-9
- PDF version (optimized for iPad mini and larger tablets): 389 pages, ISBN 978-0-9783227-9-3
- EPUB version: unpaginated, ISBN 978-0-9879130-5-0
Nothing could be more important to a communicator than understanding the metamorphosis that occurs between the printed (or online or spoken) word and its representation in someone’s thoughts, and the articles in this collection cover many aspects of this topic, including:
- word choice and the importance of words and language
- how language shapes the message an audience receives and the resulting thought processes
- the uses and limitations of metaphor
- communicating with difficult (e.g., hostile, uneducated) audiences
The newsletter title included the word “exchange” as a deliberate pun. First, it was a reference to the chemical process symbolized by the double arrows of the book's cover illustration:
In a chemical reaction, the compounds on one side of the arrows combine to form the compounds on the other side, but under the right conditions, the reaction can proceed in reverse, thereby regenerating the original reagents. The second meaning relates to the goal of the newsletter’s founders: to stimulate an exchange of ideas, hopefully with the same transformative effects on those who participated in the exchange as occurs in a chemical reaction. The resulting back-and-forth neatly parallels the flow of ideas that occurs during communication between two or more individuals, and how sometimes one’s mind changes back to its original condition.
Buy the book
The book is now available for purchase in the following formats:
Web pages cited in the book
Because links rot and Web pages come and go, I decided to include the original Web addresses in the book, but link them to this page so that I could easily update any links that changed. That's more convenient than having to issue a revised version of the book each time links change. (Note: If a link on this page breaks, please contact me to report the break so that I can fix it and benefit all readers of the book.) Apart from the first link (to my overall bibliography), all links are listed in alphabetical order for ease of reference.
Original versions of the articles
A
Akademisyen catalog of journal style guidelines
Alan Sokal: see Sokal, Alan
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
B
Bogo Vatovec: see Vatovec, Bogo
Bones (TV show)
C
Car fuel consumption (in Europe)
CBC News:
2006: 'CSI effect' adds drama to real-life crime solving
2006: Neurologists pan movie portrayals of comas
China's Gobi Desert
Confidence interval
Cosmic acceleration
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV show)
Czerneda, Julie:
No Limits project
Personal Web site
Cunningham, Darryl: cartoon about whether vaccines cause autism
D
Dark matter
Darryl Cunningham: see Cunningham, Darryl
D.C. Science Writers Association
Dichotomous keys
E
Elsevier
G
Geoff Hart: see Hart, Geoff
Ginny Redish: see Redish, Ginny
Google Groups
H
Hart, Geoff:
Blog
Bridging the gap between cultural studies theory and the world of the working practitioner
Effective Onscreen Editing
The style guide is dead: long live the dynamic style guide
Hofmann, Patrick
House, MD (TV show)
HTML Dog
I
Indiana University's Evolution and the Nature of Science Institutes
J
Julie Czerneda: see Czerneda, Julie
K
Kennedy's moon speech
L
Linux documentation
M
Michael Wesch: see Wesch, Michael
N
National Association of Science Writers
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
National Public Radio
National Research Council:
Canada
National Research Council of Canada press
U.S.
New Scientist article "Viagra gives wildlife a boost"
NIH. 2005. NIH calls on scientists to speed public release of research publications.
O
Olympus Mons
Open source software
Outliers
P
Patrick Hofmann: see Hofmann, Patrick
Peak oil
Penicillin
Phylocode
Placebo-controlled trials
"Polite Dissent" reviews of House, M.D.
Project 2061
Public Broadcasting Service
Q
Quincy (TV show)
R
Rashomon (Kurosawa film)
Redish, Ginny:
Book, Letting Go of the Words
Personal Web site
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider statement on black holes
Richard Saul Wurman: see Wurman, Richard Saul
S
Science House
Scientific American:
Rennie article on creation myths
Simon Singh: see Singh, Simon
Sing About Science and Math
Singh, Simon:
Book list
Fermat's Last Theorem
Personal Web site
Society for Technical Communication (STC)
Intercom magazine
Scientific Communication special interest group
Sokal, Alan:
Personal Web site
Site describing the Social Text hoax
Statistical significance
T
techwr-l (techwhirl) discussion group for technical communicators
the Exchange:
Archives (to read quotations)
Issue 8(3)
U
Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals
Union of Concerned Scientists
Advocacy resource ("take action") page
Union of Concerned Scientists. 2004. Restoring scientific integrity.
U.S. Department of Energy network of national and other laboratories
Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats
V
Valles Marineris
Vatovec, Bogo
W
Wesch, Michael: The Machine is Us/ing Us
Writing World
Wurman, Richard Saul
X
XKCD comic strip about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster
Y
Yahoo Groups
©2004–2024 Geoffrey Hart. All rights reserved.