Comments on: Research Interests Translated

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:10:49 +0000

@Olaf

You could just write 10 descriptions with increasing laypersonness, with each one saying “as soon as you get lost, jump down to the next description”. You haven’t got anything else you need to be getting on with, right?

As for books, see here:

http://www.genetic-inference.co.uk/blog/?p=533

By: Olaf

Olaf — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:29:24 +0000

Actually, on a somewhat related note, are there any good books on genetics which you’d recommend for someone with my background? Something (or things) relatively broad but with maybe a bit of a focus on the mathematical aspects of sequencing would be ideal.

It’s always hard, with science books, to find that spot between “no scary equations” and “as you learned back in your undergrad degree on this topic…”

By: Olaf

Olaf — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:23:19 +0000

Nice idea. There may even be room for a third stage, so that ‘scientist’ becomes ‘scientist’ and ‘scientist in my (sub)field’ – I know I would write pretty different things for a layman, a generic scientist, a generic astronomer, and a cosmologist. Your summary was fairly comprehensible to me with my very basic knowledge of biology. Did your imagined reader have any training specifically in biology?

By: Lab Rat

Lab Rat — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:00:53 +0000

This is such a good idea! My philosophy of science at the moment is that you should always be able to explain your work to the general public.

The Lay-person’s guide isn’t patronising at all, it’s very clear and understandible. Only bit I spotted was “people migrating around” – not sure if the ‘around’ is needed there, it just sounds a little wierd and most people know what migration means.

I am still uber-jealous of you getting on science-blogs.