S7E10 - Bethany Brookshire - Don’t Dumb it Down, and Other Science Writing Tips and Tricks

GES Center Lectures, NC State University

Don’t Dumb it Down, and Other Science Writing Tips and Tricks

Bethany Brookshire, PhD, Science Journalist

Website | Twitter @Beebrookshire

Abstract

Bethany Brookshire, science journalist and author of Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, made the transition from scientist to science writer. Along the way, she learned how many assumptions non-scientists make about scientific writing…and how many assumptions scientists make about non-scientific readers. The world of science writing is, in its way, just as much of a specialty as genomics, and Brookshire is here to pull back the curtain on it all.

Related links:

• Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (also available as audiobook)

Related same-day events:

• 4:30-5:30 PM – Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, @ Fishbowl Forum, D.H. Hill Library
• 7:00-8:30 PM – A conversation with Dr. Bethany Brookshire and NCMNS Mammalogist Dr. Mike Cove, WRAL 3D Theater, NC Museum of Natural Science (to be filmed by C-SPAN!)

Speaker Bio

Bethany Brookshire is a freelance science journalist and the author of the December 2022 book, Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. She is also a host and producer on the podcast Science for the People. She is a former staff writer with Science News magazine and Science News for Students, a digital magazine covering the latest in scientific research for kids ages 9-14. Her freelance writing has appeared in Scientific American, Science News magazine, Science News Explores, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Slate and other outlets. Bethany has a PhD in Physiology and Pharmacology from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She was a 2019-2020 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

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