Science Journalism (HPSC0122)
Students learn how to write short news stories, profiles, and reportages for broadsheet newspapers and popular science magazines, targeting a range of audiences from educated adults to school children
They write blog posts and produce other kind of contents for social media such as short captioned videos. They interview scientists on their work and present their interviews in writing as well as through podcasting. Issues in the public communication of science are discussed from this practical standpoint. This module is time intensive and requires substantial group work. It rests on the idea that the only way to learn how to write is to write as much as possible. The assessment for the module is a mix of formative and summative assessment and assignments.
Objectives:
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- know how to structure a piece of communication to achieve their aim;
- be able to write short informative texts, for blogs or more traditional news outlets;
- have a sense of what it takes to find good science news story;
- be aware of different ways of communicating scientific idea;
- be able to communicate scientific ideas through different media, using sound, image, or objects, as well as the written word;
- be familiar with the basic principles of interviewing;
- have planned and conducted a reportage;
- be able to coordinate different sources to write a feature piece;
- be aware of sociological issues pertaining to the communication of scientific knowledge.
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