ChemSemBlog

For this past week’s presentation, we were fortunate enough to have Jylian Kemsley PhD, an associate editor for C&E News. Her presentation was unique and informative because rather than highlighting research like past seminars, she was actually able to give a talk on a career as a science writer. Working for C&E News, she has been able to utilize both her skills as a writer and her expertise in chemistry. Another interesting thing to note about this presentation was that it was in a video conference style, with her doing the actual presentation in California. This actually turned out better than I anticipated because it was almost like the presenter was their as we were able to follow along with her PowerPoint slide as well as see her face.

Throughout this presentation, she gave a lot of great advice and abundant information on a career as a science writer. I was able to learn many new things that would be of great use to anyone who is even remotely interested in this particular field of work. For example, she was able to describe some of the programs that are for science writing as well as getting started as a science writer. She then went on to describe the typical features of her job and the many tasks that she has to accomplish in order for a article to be written. From her presentation I was able to gather that there is a lot of stresses involved with this kind of work. For example, the staff has to stay on top of recent scientific papers and local/national news.

She did a great description on both the challenges and work opportunities for those interested in a career as a science writer. Being able to cope with unfamiliar territory and pressure, while also being pressured and critiqued shows the qualities of such a writer. Finally, we were able to learn the different workplaces that are involved with science writing such as news paper, magazines, online media, trade publication and newsletters, science journals, and freelance opportunities.

Overall, I would say that Kemsley’s presentation was rather interesting and unique because it was a change of pace from what we are typically accustomed to in seminars. She was able to thoroughly describe the aspects of her job, while not even being physically present. Also, she was able to give great answers to the many questions that we had in store for her. The scientific portions of this seminar did not required any specialized chemistry knowledge so an interpretation of it to a non-science friend is not needed.

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The lecture this week was definitely an informative and interesting one. One of the things that made it interesting, certainly entertaining, was the fact that it was done via web conference. This being the first time I have ever been involved in a web conference, I kind of liked it. Another thing that made it interesting was the topic. So far in our weekly lectures the topics have only been on the technical aspects of chemistry, but this lecture was on writing about chemistry.

One of the things that I learned during the course of the lecture was that to be the editor of a scientific news journal or magazine, you don’t necessarily need to have a background in the science that you are editing. According to the speaker, even if you don’t have the background in science, after a while you probably have read enough articles and other news pieces that you could pass for someone with a degree in the sciences.

Another thing that I learned was that most major news programs usually drop their science sections during hard economic times such as the one we are in. The speaker mentioned that CNN fired its whole science wing to make ends meet. One thing that I would like to know more about would be how freelance writing works. Not that I would like writing for a living, but science writing is an interesting topic. To write about something other than literature or history or topics related to those seems like it could almost be fun. If I were to describe this lecture to a non-science friend, I would have to say that it was about writing for a chemistry magazine and how the speaker went about building her career in science writing.

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This week’s seminar presenter was Jyllian Kemsley Ph.D, the associate editor of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).  She communicated to us via a video link.  The purpose of her presentation was to enlighten us undergrad students on the topic of science writing.  Kemsley has had experience as an analytical chemist working for Merck.  She is also a graduate of Amherst College and obtained her graduate degree at Stanford University.  At UC Santa Cruz, Kemsley took part in training for science writing before joining C&EN in 2007.

Her employer-C&EN,  is affiliated with the American Chemical Society; which is currently the world’s largest chemical society.  C&EN itself is partitioned into three distinct groups: business, government and policy, and education in science and technology.  Kemsley is one of eleven writers in the education in science and technology group.  A weekly magazine of C&EN includes feature stories, news items, online news, and blogs.

In a typical week the writers read scientific papers, top of the news, converse with scientists and other sources, write, revise, and attend conferences both near and far. They then employ five or more editors and their goal is to produce good stories for readers.  Though the goals of the writers are usually met,  there are still some challenges that come with the demands of science writing. One must be comfortable with unfamiliar territory, creative on demand, and simultameously balance various kinds of stories under various time pressures. Some rewards of becoming a scientific writer are: intellectual freedom, personal creativity, and flexibility in work hours and topic content.

Personally, Kemsley has written stories on breast milk and nutrition and the influence it has on the infants, water plants mixing with sewage, and various types of other topics.  She says that if one is thinking of becoming a scientific writer,  they must have a fascination with science and a drive to keep learning.  However, one major problem that science writers face is that when a company has a tough economic situation, science writers and journalists are usually among the first to be laid off.   I personally thought this was very interesting, especially the fact that CNN laid off all of their scientific staff over the summer, so I would say that if one is thinking of doing scientific writing with a news media,  I suggest they also have a backup plan.

Overall, I have to say that this presentation was very interesting.  I gained valuable insights into the field of science writing.  Though they may not be active lab chemists, I can now see how instrumental science writers are in being the link between scientist and people with no scientific background.  I found Dr. Kemsley’s presentation style to be very informative.  This engaged me and other students, and helped me gain a new respect for the writers of the science articles that I read.

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The guest speaker for chemistry seminar was Jyllian Kemsly. She is an associate editor of Chemical and Engineering News. She earned her doctorate degree in Chemistry at Standford University. While attending doctorate program, she also took the science writing program, which gave her a chance to work as a science writer.

The seminar was held by video conference. Sometimes, when we asked her questions, she answered a little bit later. However, the seminar finished without much trouble. I think that video conference is a good tool to learn and share thoughts between the people whom I can not reach easily and me.

From the seminar, I learned what C&EN consists of, what kind of weekly news there are in the magazine, what makes a good science writer and her life story. Throughout her life story, I could understand writers’ challenges, solicitude and rewards. One interesting thing was that a person needs to have thick skin to be a good science writer. The reason is that everyone has different thoughts, and the writers cannot fit to everyone’s opinion.

She had worked as a freelance for a few years, and joined C&EN. I asked her about the reason why she applied to C&EN. She told me that she had several reasons. One of them was that it was not easy for her to write science things to general audience.

I would tell my friends that the seminar was about science writing skills and if you become a science writer, it involves creativity, flexibility of your time, and intellectual freedom.

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This week in seminar we were privileged to hear from a writer at Chemical & Engineering News, Dr. Jyllian Kemsley. Although she was just an “accidental” chemistry major, she greatly enjoyed the field and went on to receive a doctoral degree. As a employee of C&EN, Kemsley has the privilege of working indirectly for the American Chemical Society, the largest science organization in the world. For those interested in science writing as a profession, Kemsley noted that one does not necessarily need to be a scientist or have a science major to work as a journalist at C&EN, which opens up the doors to a world of outside opportunity.

The presentation was done via webcam, a new kind of technology to the Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Andrews University. The use of this technology went by better than I had expected. There seemed to be other men there that were helping out with the whole presentation as well. Though there were some troubles getting both streams on the screen simultaneously, seminar proceeded unencumbered for the majority of time spent there. During the Q & A portion, Kemsley entertained the students many questions concerning science writing, including non-writing aspects of work at C&EN like science illustrators.

I’ve always been impressed with the writing in C&EN and similar magazines like Nature. The articles are usually very interesting and can be understood by a somewhat wide group of readers. This reputation has been confirmed through the presentation of Dr. Kemsley here today. I give this presentation a 9/10 for professionalism, a 9/10 for chemistry/information content and a 9/10 for student engagement.

To the layperson, this seminar talked about the sort of jobs that are available in science writing and the kind of duties associated.

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Today we had a very experimental seminar, the first of its kind in our amphitheater. Calling us from San Francisco, Dr. Jyllian N. Kemsley talked about her career in science writing through video conferencing. Currently the associate editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Kemsley spent her undergraduate years as a pre-professional student but became an “accidental chemist”. Upon graduation she worked at a pharmacy as an analytical chemist, unsure of entering medical or graduate school. Eventually she continued her education in graduate school at UC Santa Cruz. After graduate school, Kemsley stumbled upon the idea of science writing as a career, joining two skills she had kept very separate before.

After saying a bit about her history, Kemsley went on to talk about what science writing entails based on her experience at C&EN. Including the feature stories and news items in the published magazines, their website includes breaking news and some material only online. There is also a blog which includes a “potpourri of things” such as updates on past stories, extra information that didn’t fit into the rest of the story, or entertaining videos. Working as a science writer gives her a lot of freedom and creativity to work with intellectually challenging work while pushing her into unfamiliar territories.

For our first video conference, the seminar went amazingly smooth. Since most of the students have experience with online video chatting I do not believe that any of us were particularly unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the format. Projected on the screen were two small windows, one of the audience (us) and one of the speaker (Kemsley) adjacent to the main window showing the PowerPoint. Fellow student Gi Hyun Choi noted that all our most interesting speakers engaged us by presence and a lot of interaction (throwing us goodies) so wondered if a video conference would be a snooze-fest. That problem was solved by the camera pointed at us and actually, even without her physical presence, I found Kemsley one of the more interesting speakers we’ve had all semester. While not crazy or laugh-out-loud hilarious, her clear spoken manner, well-organized presentation, and bits of wit and humor made for an educational and stimulating seminar.

Although it was not her field, due to my interest in art, when she mentioned that the publishing company she worked for had artists I had to ask how much science background the artists had. As expected, this isn’t her territory however she did say that most of the work in C&EN was more general processing rather than drawing. She also said that Santa Cruz has a science illustration program (http://scienceillustration.org/) and that most science illustrators work in the area of PR, graphics for research, and covers.

One of the most memorable stories Kemsley worked on in her career is the death of a chemist at UCLA in the laboratory. And one of the most unique stories she worked on is about “Breaking Bad”, a television series about a high school chemistry teacher who after being diagnosed with cancer begins producing amphetamines to secure financial security for his family.

Laymen’s Summary of the Seminar: Science writing is a great job for those with the love of writing and the love of science.  Actually those people who don’t have super science knowledge can still make it! Science writing can be creative and fulfilling, tough but rewarding.

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