Recording science

Bruce Gibb mused in a Thesis column in Nature Chemistry a few months back about taking small chunks of time to tune up your research apparatus. I'm on sabbatical leave this semester, and in addition to the research projects I've got going, I'm trying to devote some time on a regular basis to just this. I'm playing with an simple animation app, that would let me quickly put together animations for research talks or classes — and test driving apps for electronic research notebooks.

As a computational chemist, I've been balanced on the knife edge of digital record keeping my whole career. What goes into paper archives (hand kept, or printed), what stays electronic? Who backs stuff up, how often? Long term storage? I've encourage my students to think about how they want to track their data and, at least as importantly, their thinking about their data. Through it all (from punch cards to mag tape to memory sticks) I've always kept at least some of my work on real paper, in a traditional hardbound notebook. In ink. Dated. You know the drill.

I've been reluctant to let go of pen and paper. Just as I still outline just about any piece of writing, including this one, on real paper, I find I think differently off the keyboard. Keyboards tend to enforce a certain linearity of thinking, while a sheet of paper (or several and lots of stickies) lets me move into multiple dimensions, with fewer restrictions on insertions and more flexibility in formatting.

The work I'm doing now in the archives is facilitated by having photos of what I'm reading, many of the bound copies are too fragile to routinely scan or photocopy. Ironically, reading 19th century journals has catapulted me into the 21st century as far as my own record keeping is concerned. I'm using an integrated notebook app on my iPad which allows me to scribble and sketch by hand, take and incorporate photos (and mark them up if I wish), and input text from the keyboard. Finally, I can tag pages, and filter the notebook by tags (more consistent than my own hand written indexing procedures). The only thing I don't care for is that I can't write as small as I wish, making it harder to get an overall view of where I'm going. It's an experiment still,

Today's Nature [Nature 481, 410(2012)] has an editorial and an analysis piece on digital record keeping in science. One scientist notes that paper has nothing to offer her - she's gone entirely to her iPad. I may be right behind.

Lab Notes: Walking the walk

Some days you have to be willing to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. My primary care physician keeps copious, real time notes on her encounters with her patients. She starts every visit with her pad in her lap - writing notes to herself (and best, yet, notes to me on what I need to follow-up on, complete with phone numbers and details) as the visit proceeds. So when she inquired about my immunization status during my physical yesterday, and she asked about tetanus, I thought I recalled getting a booster in 2008. Nothing in her notes on that.

Do we trust my memory or her notes? We'd chatted about my science writing, and given my expressed thoughts about (good) field notes - it was no contest. I have a sore arm, but no regrets.

The book I really want to read about field notes is not yet out (but I've ordered a copy) - Field Notes on Science and Nature edited by Michael Canfield of Notes from the field. The cover is beautiful and the contents look intriguing.

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Image is from Wikimedia commons. A 1964 poster boosting boosters.

Writing Science: Objectivity

Writing prompt Day 2
Pick one of the objects on the table and write a detailed description of it. You may handle the pieces. If you know the generally accepted name of the object, do not use it in your description. Either way, make up a name for the object.












Assorted questions on the table

• What sorts of editing happen as notes get written? (Everything from the decision to pick up a pen or not -- if it means stripping off your gloves, or mucking up a pen, reliance on memory, distractions of running experimental work, your perspective/focus came up.)
• David Everett suggests exercises for finding your voice - do real writers do things like this? Natalie Goldberg suggests writing without stopping for a set period. (Do real writers 'practice'? How? Why? What might you get out of exercises like these?)
• How are new scientific terms birthed?

Writing along with us? Willing to share? Leave a link in the comments!

Writing Science: Field Notes

The first topic on the table in the new course I'm teaching is Field Notes, but I'm also hoping to use this space as my own field notes on the course and for responses from those of you "in the field" (writing, reading, blogging, practicing science). If you want to follow along - or better yet kibbitz - I'm posting the writing prompts that start off every class, some of the writing assignments and the readings.

Writing Prompt Day 1
Tell me everything you know about Jello. 5 minutes. Start.

Writing Assignment
Make a transect. Map out a linear route and then make a detailed record of what you encounter along that route. The route can be long or short, indoors or out.Be imaginative. Examples: a transect across your room, on Merion green, across a microscope slide, a lab bench top, a parking lot. You can focus on a specific element in your transect, such as plant life, bacteria, or debris. If you chose to transcribe your notes (as Darwin did), attach the originals. Your notes should be roughly 300-400 words.

Questions I think it would be interesting to think about
Are field notes/lab notebooks completely objective records of what was observed?
Do they affect the science going forward?
Is it ok to be vivid and "over the top" in field notes? Do they have to be linear? in pen?
Why do think scientists rarely "get it right" in keeping notes? (Or at least that's what E. Bright Wilson thought.)

Readings for the first week:

• First Thoughts, from Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Shambhala, 2005.
• Beginner's Mind, Pen and Paper, Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Shambhala, 2005.
• Notebooks and Records in E.B. Wilson in An Introduction to Scientific Research, Dover, 1991.

And at least one from the list:

• Medicine in Translation, Danielle Ofri
• Trouble with the Editor, from Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Shambhala, 2005.
• Introduction, from Strunk, William, and E. B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition.
• Find a Voice and a Style, David Everett in Blum, Deborah, Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers. Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.
• The Open Sea (excerpt), Alister Hardy in Dawkins, Richard. The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008.

• Complete collection of Linus Pauling's lab notebooks from Special Collections at Oregon State University.
• Charles Darwin's notebooks
• Some curatorial comments on Darwin's notebooks