Tag: science communication

IWSG: An Insecure Science Communicator

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 21 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and cohosted this month by J Lenni Dorner, Victoria Marie Lees, and Sandra Cox.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

Each month, IWSG asks members a question.  The question is optional.  I usually skip it, but this month’s question stirred up some deep feelings and some deep insecurities, so I thought I’d better address that.  The question is:

Many writers have written about the experience of rereading their work years later.  Have you reread any of your early works?  What was that experience like for you?

I’ve mentioned before in these IWSG posts that I feel insecure about my role as a science communicator, given that I don’t have any formal scientific training or experience.  So it’s a little jarring, when I’m looking for information about a specific space/science topic, to see my own blog posts pop up in search results.  I sometimes forget, when I’m looking for information about a specific topic, that I’ve already covered that topic before.

Reading those old blog posts of mine—those blog posts I forgot I wrote—is not fun.  They’re pretty cringy.  The art (in my judgment) is bad, the writing is worse, and the jokes aren’t funny.  However, setting aside these issues of style, the substance of my old blog posts is surprisingly decent.  The important thing is this: I came looking for information about a specific space/science topic.  Sometimes it’s a super niche topic that nobody on the Internet would think to write about (except me, apparently).  And whatever information current me is looking for, past me provided it.  Past me also did a good job citing his sources, usually, so if I want to learn more, I can learn more.

I still feel insecure about my place as a science blogger on the Internet.  My writing could be better.  My art could be better, too, and my jokes need work.  But after rereading some of my old blog posts, I can feel reassured about this: I stick to the facts and communicate information well.  I’m at least doing that part of the job right.

IWSG: Answering My Inner Critic

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 14 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Shannon Lawrence, Olga Godim, Jean Davis, and Jacqui Murray.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

Each month, IWSG asks members a question.  Answering the monthly question is not required.  It’s totally optional, which is good news for me, because there’s a different question plaguing my thoughts today.  A different question that keeps getting in the way of writing.  It’s a question that my inner critic keeps asking in snide, Smeagol-like whispers:

You’re no scientist.  You don’t work for NASA.  What gives you the right to blog about space exploration?

And I admit, my inner critic has a point.  I’m a huge fan of space exploration, and I probably do know more about space than the average person.  But still, I’m a long way away from being a true expert.  Plenty of others can speak with greater authority about space than I can.  Some of my readers know more about space than I do.

However, when my inner critic asks these sort of questions—questions like “What right do you have to blog about space?”—I think my inner critic misses the whole point of my blog.  I love space.  I’ve committed myself to learning as much as I can about space, and I believe that learning is a three step process:

  • Passive learning, which is the passive consumption of information from books, online lectures, etc.
  • Active learning, which means (among other things) reexplaining the information you’ve learned in your own words.
  • Receiving feedback, which involves people correcting your mistakes, asking interesting questions, suggesting topics for future research, etc.

From time to time, my inner critic reminds me that I’m not an astrobiologist, not a planetary scientist, not an aerospace engineer, and shames me into not writing.  But that doesn’t just shut down writing.  It shuts down my whole learning process.  If I don’t do my blogging, how will I learn?

Is that answer enough to silence my inner critic?  Actually, it is.  Inner critics are cowards.  They don’t know what to do when you talk back to them, they don’t know what to say when you stand up for yourself.  Much of what I said in today’s post is specific to my own writing and my own issues with my own inner critic.  But if your inner critic has been asking snide questions and shaming you into not writing, then I hope you’ll start talking back like I did.  It really works.