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Asked by liv to Pete, Natalie, Keith, Abbey, Aaron on 9 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by 543smgd54.
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Aaron Boardley answered on 9 Nov 2015:
Like all jobs, some days are more challenging than others. Do I ever get stuck on what to write? Yes!
When writing, I have to make sure my work is suitable for the audience I’m writing for, and this can vary a lot. I might write a report for government, then an article for a magazine read by engineers, then a case study for a website to be read by school students. Even if the facts are the same in each of them, I need to make sure the writing is interesting and understandable, too.
So, the problem is not usually in deciding what to write about – but in going back and editing a redrafting so that it is interesting and clear as well as factually correct.
Sometimes it’s hard to come up with the right words or phrases. Sometimes it’s hard to keep things interesting to read when you get bogged down in loads of technical detail. I find the more I practice and the more stuff I read, the better I get. It’s good to have variety, too – if I’m not getting on very well with one piece of writing I can leave it for a while and try another.
When I feel I’ve got it right, though, it’s really rewarding. I’ve always loved being creative and it’s great to look at some finished work and hear people find it interesting, while still including lots of good science in it.
[I should probably apologise at this point. Because I’m keen to answer as many questions as I can, these answers will all be written in a rush so I’m sure they’re not up to my usual standard of writing!]
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Natalie Garrett answered on 10 Nov 2015:
Hi Liv!
My job is a challenging one, for sure. I think that’s why I enjoy it so much. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be so rewarding. A big part of my job is writing up my results in papers which (hopefully) get published in journals. You can see a list of my papers here if you’re interested: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=xFqKGS0AAAAJ&hl=en
I find writing papers is difficult. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, or what exactly you want to say. This gets easier the more of them you’ve written. My approach these days is to start with the data I have, and work out what it is I want to tell the reader. Once I have figured this out, I arrange the figures for the paper and write around them.
It can take years to finish a paper, though, because it’s easy to keep thinking “oh I could do this bit differently” and just keep on changing it and changing it. I need to remember that nothing is ever perfect, you just work on things until they’re good enough. Hopefully I will get more efficient in the future!
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Keith Franklin answered on 12 Nov 2015:
Liv,
“Hard” is probably not the right word – if my job was easy all the time I would get bored! It is very satifying to do something difficult and complete it. It ffels much better than doing something easy. “Hey I just made a cheese sandwich!” doesn’t sound very impressive. “Hey, I just managed to fix a problem at a nuclear power station.” makes you feel good about yourself.
and yes, I always get stuck on what to write. It is much easier with a computer because you can just start writing, and even if it is rubbish you can change it easily and then go back and use the good bits. When I started as a Scientist I did everything on paper and it was harder to change it without making a mess!!
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