NCBS announces its 5th annual science journalism workshop, which will be held on campus from June 8 to June 20, 2015.The workshop’s main objective is to impart the basic skills necessary for communicating science to the lay person via the written word.

Students will learn the elements of good science writing and the art and craft of conducting good interviews. The workshop will focus on news and features, two forms of writing that can form the basis for a career in communicating science to the lay person.

Popular science writing and journalism isn’t merely about summarising an academic paper. Rather, it strives to entertain and educate, provide multiple points-of-view, and at its best be an independent and necessary part of a thriving culture of scientific enquiry.

The workshop will demand active and committed participation from students. They will have to interview scientists, write news and feature stories, which will be edited in-class by the instructors. A firm grounding in science and/or technology is mandatory as is a facility with language.

The workshop will require fulltime attention, from 9 AM to 6 PM. We’ll be working on all days except Sunday. Please be prepared to commit fully to the workshop.

Students from outside NCBS are also encouraged to apply. The workshop is for a maximum of 10 students. Accommodation will be provided on campus for up to 5 out-of-station students.

If you are interested please email Anil Ananthaswamy at ncbs.workshop.2015@gmail.com by April 2, 2015. Each applicant should send a CV and write a short essay, of no more than 500 words, describing his or her reasons for wanting to join the workshop. Prospective students will be contacted via email by 30 April, 2015.  Please do not inquire about your selection before 30 April, 2015. The organisers are unable to respond to individual requests for information before the deadline.

INSTRUCTORS

Anil Ananthaswamy: consultant, New Scientist magazine. Anil has a BTech (IIT-M), and MSEE (UW, Seattle) and trained as a journalist at UC Santa Cruz. He has been with New Scientist in various capacities since 2000, most recently as staff writer and deputy news editor. Anil’s work has appeared in Discover magazine, National Geographic News, The Independent (UK) and Times Online (UK). He is a guest lecturer at UCSC’s science writing program. Anil is the author of The Edge of Physics (2010), and his new book The Man Who Wasn’t There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self will be published by Dutton (Penguin Random House, USA) in August 2015.

Peter Aldhous: An award-winning veteran science journalist, Peter has a PhD in animal behaviour. He teaches investigative and policy reporting at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and data visualization at the University of California, Berkeley. Peter is former bureau chief, New Scientist magazine, San Francisco. Before that he was news editor at New Scientist in London, chief news and features editor at Nature in London, and European correspondent for Science.