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Cramming for the Slam
Nationaal Archief / Spaarnestad Photo, SFA002010354/Flickr Few tasks bring more stress and anxiety to freelancers than pitching a story, except coming face-to-face with an editor at a meeting and...
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Post-Slam Dunk
The great thing about a pitch slam is that everyone benefits from courageous writers who conquer their nerves enough to pitch an idea, at a microphone, in front of a room full of their peers and a...
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Serendipity Story: A Pitch in Sheep’s Clothing
Science writer Jim Kling with Rodeo, one of his border collies, who is ignoring a sheep. I’ve been a freelance writer for nearly two decades, specializing in science and medicine. Most of my living...
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Ask TON: Breaking Into Science Writing
Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock Welcome back for another installment of Ask TON. (Click here to see previous installments.) Today’s question: I’m a new science writer and I have very few published clips....
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Pictures and Prose: When Photographers and Writers Work Together
Dominic Bracco photographs fishermen after a long day of work on the eastern Sea of Cortez. Modern journalism was built on teams of photographers and writers heading off together to report stories back...
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How to Prepare for the ScienceWriters2013 Power Pitch
The “power pitch” session at ScienceWriters2013 will give writers a chance to connect face-to-face with editors from 11 different publishers and publications. The session will be held Saturday morning...
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Ask TON: How Soon to Repitch an Editor?
Welcome back for another installment of Ask TON. (Click here to see previous installments.) Today’s question: I just received a nice rejection letter from an editor who encouraged me to try again. I’d...
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Track Changes: From Writer to Editor
Writers and editors don’t always see eye-to-eye. Sometimes those differences can make it feel like they simply don’t understand each other. But many editors come to their jobs after spending many...
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Writing for Women’s Magazines
racom/Shutterstock When I tell other science writers that I write for women’s magazines, their reaction is typically something along the lines of “Whoa. What is that like?” Writing for magazines like...
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Ask TON: How Much Time Should I Spend Preparing a Pitch?
Katar/Shutterstock Welcome back for another installment of Ask TON. Here’s this month’s question: “What is a normal amount of time to spend on preparing pitches for magazine feature stories? I’ve...
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Repurposing Story Ideas for Multiple Venues
Nicholas Raymond/Flickr One of the joys of science writing is the chance to follow your curiosity. When you’re interviewing interesting people for any one story, they invariably drop some...
View ArticleGender Differences in Pitching: Results from the TON Pitching Habits Survey
Two-thirds of science journalism students and 61 percent of National Association for Science Writing (NASW) members are women. Yet men have more jobs in newspaper newsrooms, more bylines in the top 10...
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Why Is It So Hard for Foreign Journalists to Break into U.S. and European...
Chrishna/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0) Some of the biggest science stories, from climate change to gene editing to infectious disease, are global stories. Journalists based outside the United States and...
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Going Digital: Inside New Science Journalism Outlets
Tran Mau Tri Tam/Unsplash While many traditional print publications struggle to stay afloat, new all-digital science magazines are launching, and some online outlets are expanding their health and...
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Finding the Science in Any Story
frimages/iStock Back in the spring, an editor emailed me to ask if I’d take on an assignment about comedian Amy Schumer’s recent movie, I Feel Pretty. I don’t write about entertainment or Hollywood,...
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Delivering the Bad News: How to Reject Pitches Well
The Open Notebook Many freelance writers—and some editors, too—see a pitch rejection as the end of the road: The editor doesn’t want this story, and that’s the end of it. And too often, that is the...
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Freelancing in the Time of Coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic has brought health and science reporting to the fore at every publication, but budgets are tight and freelance journalists, even those with relevant expertise, may find that...
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Science Journalism Master Classes
Master your craft with our free Science Journalism Master Classes. These short courses, delivered by email, are made possible by a grant from The Kavli Foundation. The post Science Journalism Master...
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Making First Contact with Editors
Contacting an editor for the first time can be intimidating, especially for writers who lack experience. It can be hard to even get the contact details of an editor. Although there is no standard way...
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Cómo hacer el primer contacto con los editores
Contactar a un editor por primera vez puede resultar intimidante, especialmente para los escritores que carecen de experiencia. Incluso puede ser difícil obtener los datos de contacto de un editor....
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