1. Planning and structuring your work (by Jan Lublinski)
1.1 Introduction

Science reporters, even experienced ones, tend to fall in love at first sight: A new tuberculosis drug — I have to write about this! Dark matter — what a thrilling mystery! One laptop per child — we need to discuss this!

But successful science writing is not only about finding exciting topics. Complex issues need to be at least partly understood and put into context, while the personalities of scientists may not make for the most straightforward interviews.

Science writing is just as much about the questions: How do I focus my work? How do I plan, sell and present a story?

Once you have completed this lesson, you will have taken a new look at news outlets, audiences, and the news angle of journalistic stories. You will also be more familiar with the concept of the research sentence, which can help you to structure your research as well to write your story. And you will have had a brief introduction to the concepts of narrative writing and the storytelling sentence.


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