3.20 Assignments (1-4)
These assignments are related to the Lesson Three e-lecture. They are homework that you can do yourself and then discuss with a tutor, mentor or other mentees.
ASSIGNMENT 1: Interviews on a slow news day
Contact a science organisation in your country or region. There is an Academy of Science in most countries. You can find many of them under the "membership" button at the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World website at: [ http://www.twas.org ] or the Interacademy Panel on International Issues at: [ http://www.interacademies.net ]. Many countries have some version of a CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research). Or you could investigate some university science faculties. Track down their longest-serving scientist as well as their newest scientist. There has to be a story in there somewhere. If possible, visit in person and hang out in the cafeteria or wherever you can strike up conversations with the scientists. Identify yourself. Ask what they do. Ask if you can keep in touch with them. Ask what is interesting about their work. This is relationship-building. But it pays off: you may find yourself doing a personality profile, or previewing some still-in-the-pipeline science which hasn't been published yet, or reporting on the painstaking process of science or on funding cutbacks. This is what you do on a slow news day.
ASSIGNMENT 2: Getting more from an interview
This is a fairly easy exercise to work into your existing schedule.
- When doing a face-to-face interview, take an additional 10 minutes to interview the person again in a completely different style. For example, if you were reporting on a hard news story, try to do a personality profile. If you were getting a sound bite for radio news, what about trying to do something for a programme or a talk show? You may well find you can use both interviews for different media outlets.
- You can also do one same interview but consider it for different markets. Would you ask the same questions for an 800-word international science news website like SciDev.Net, for a three-paragraph story in the local daily newspaper, or for the news section of the journal Nature?
Try to initiate and conduct a brief international interview through email, instant messaging, Skype, or any other technology, including cellphones. Try interviewing a colleague – a mentee or a journalist – who will be open to experimenting with new technology, but try not to pick someone in your own neighbourhood or country. If you are interested in the newest technologies, try to initiate your own free science blog or podcast in which you document your interviews.
ASSIGNMENT 4: Broaden your interview scope
Select your most unlikely candidate for a science-based interview. For example, if you hated mathematics, or never understood physics or your editor thinks geologists are irrelevant, pick someone with strengths in those areas. Try to understand some of their work, and try to do an interview on this topic – perhaps a personal interview, so you don't have to explain too much of the science, but ask about their life, their wife or husband and their children as well. And ask about why they love their work, rather than focus on the work itself without the personal touch. Write it up in under 800 words for an international audience. Send it to the non-profit website [ http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za ] if it is appropriate for their use, and it may be published, especially if you include a picture. They won't charge you for editing, and in exchange, you won't be paid.
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