Juniper Tremper
Scientific Writing 105-19
Geneseo, NY
~265 words

Plebians Prefer Twitter over Science Magazines
Juniper Tremper

The biggest trouble scientists run into when trying to publicize their work is the inability of the general public to maintain interest long enough to gain understanding of the subject material. Therefore, a style of writing has evolved to present modern science in such a way as to not scare away the people who stop reading after the first two sentences. Rachel Nuwer’s article, “Twitter May Be Faster Than FEMA Models For Tracking Disaster Damage,” which is visible online, utilizes the format by breaking the textual element into pieces. The long and descriptive title, with an equally lengthy subtitle, makes no effort to mislead as to the article’s content. Each paragraph is only two or three sentences long, and each makes an immediate point, often referencing other case studies or professionals involved without explaining anything in detail because since the article is published online, any external information links directly to its source. Nuwer’s article discusses the very real potential to analyze the path of a storm by tracking its Twitter presence, which in itself could become a lengthy article citing specific numbers and the reliability of the corrolation, but the author abbreviates each point into extremely concise statements which are easy to follow from one paragraph to the next, and easy to remember for the reader to tell their friends about later. The actual values and scientific evidence are, unfortunately, virtually unimportant. The inclusion of a graphic, or a map, as Nuwer uses, is all the reader needs to put faith in the conclusion they are presented with, and share news of the article with friends and acquaintances.

For reference, Nuwer’s article can be found at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/twitter-may-be-faster-fema-models-tracking-disaster-damage-180958391/