Undergraduate, Peer-Reviewed Science Journal
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Issue 2, April 2001 JYI Feature Science Article Reviewer: Patricia J. Watson, Chasing the White Rabbit Mary Patyten JYI Features Editor patyten@jyi.org
We
at JYI could not contain our curiosity when we learned that Trish
Watson, one of our new Feature Article Reviewers from the professional
science writing community, had attempted to start an online journal
for undergraduate research as part of her master's
thesis. What was it that led Trish, then a technical communication
graduate student and research assistant at North
Carolina State's Center for Communication in Science, Technology
and Management to start an online, undergraduate research journal?
Her analysis of the project for her master's thesis showed that, in fact, university faculty members were the motivators that she had not included in her equation. Trish believes that if NCSU faculty had received some reward or recognition for having their students publish, or if professors had required or encouraged their students to publish, faculty may have provided the push needed to fill the journal with great undergraduate papers. There were also problems with perceptions of whether or not it was appropriate to publish undergraduate work. "Students aren't authors," was a common theme Trish met during analysis of her project. Plus, a "Writing Across the Curriculum" initiative had caused many faculty members to rethink what they considered ‘excellent' writing, and so publicly nominating a paper as ‘excellent' might have been problematic at that time. "So, you could really say that the principle behind JYI is near and dear to my heart: giving students practice, giving students a showcase for excellent work, preparing them for being on the forefront for the communication challenges of the future, and providing a platform for experimentation that could conceivably contribute to the entire system of research communication in its ever-changing history," Trish said recently. "The history of science communication makes this evolution clearly inevitable!" How does Trish feel about JYI's chances, given the fate of her own journal? "After analyzing my own unsuccessful, single-university undergraduate research publication, it is quite clear to me that a publication with an international base has a good chance of making a go of it, and I'm happy to help in that endeavor just as much as I would have been happy to continue working with the NCSU Student Researcher had it taken off," she said. The course that Trish Watson took to the science communication field is as unlikely as the route Alice took in pursuit of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Raised by two scientists, she grew up steeped in the scientific method, but decided in her teens to pursue a career as an artist. After high school graduation from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, she tried pursuing life as a potter. Finding that difficult at the young age of sixteen, she began her undergraduate career at a local community college and then the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, first studying creative writing (but seeing no future in it), then political science (a pursuit too fraught with politicians for her liking), and finally ending up as a chemistry major. She took two years of what she terms "hard-core science and mathematics" before she realized that she really had no interest in working in a lab for the rest of her life, either. It was at this point that Trish decided to take a breather and ponder her destiny. Her turning point came, she says, when she realized that she would rather read about science than practice it. As with many science communicators, she rebelled against the restraints of scientific specialization, being interested in many, if not all, aspects of science. At this juncture, Carolina Academic Press scooped her up and showed her that all her interests and talents really did have a focused outlet. Working as production manager for the Press, she combined all her interests: artistic, academic, literary and scientific, in producing scientific publications. She loved it. With a clearer picture of what she would like to study, Trish went back to school to get her degree. At North Carolina State University, she and her advisors designed a multidisciplinary undergraduate major with emphases in the culture of science and science writing. Her love of mathematics led her to write an undergraduate honors thesis assessing the impact of chaos and complexity theory on science and society. She went on to earn her master's degree in technical communication at North Carolina State, where she focused on scientific writing, teaching, and her thesis project, the experimental electronic journal for undergraduate research. Trish's belief in the importance of broad-scale science communication is reflected in a quotation from physicist Werner Heisenberg, which has hung on her bulletin board at home since she was sixteen years old: "Even for the physicist, the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached." Without communication, science is worthless, she says, a fact that has rung true for her throughout her studies of the history of science. What motivated Trish to volunteer as a JYI Science Feature Article Reviewer? "Now that I work as an editor in the pharmaceutical world, I want to keep my hand in education, online publishing and research writing," she says. "JYI is an excellent way to do all three at once." Trish also has some very definite recommendations for undergraduates who want to enter the science communication field. She strongly suggests getting an undergraduate degree in one of the sciences, then pursuing writing. No matter what field science students end up in, she says, their writing skills will be highly prized. Trish firmly believes that experience is the best teacher when it comes to writing. Write and publish as many articles as possible, she suggests. Write all that you can, and save all that you do - and remember that electronic experience is extremely good to have.
Journal
of Young Investigators. 2001. Volume Three.
Copyright © 2001 by Mary Patyten and JYI. All rights reserved. |
JYI is supported by: The National Science Foundation, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Science Magazine, Science's Next Wave, Swarthmore College, Duke University, Georgetown University, and many others.
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©1998-2003 The Journal of Young Investigators, Inc.