Ivan

“Last week I sat through a day of environmental talks. You know what I remember from that entire day? Only one thing-the story a guy told about how he was sitting on an airplane and the lady next to him asked for cream for her coffee, but when they brought her the small plastic containers of cream, she said, "No thanks; the plastic isn't biodegradable." And he thought to himself, "I can hardly hear her over the jet engines that are burning up fifty gazillion barrels of fuel a minute, and she's worried about a thimble-sized piece of plastic?"
That's all I remember from that day. Why is that? It's the power of a well-told story that is also very specific. Stories that are full of vague generalizations are weak. Specifics give them strength.”
― Randy Olson, Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style

“Stepping outside your comfort zone to reach out can have tremendous payoffs. Whether you are building your network of media contacts, writing an opinion piece for a newspaper or blog, arranging a meeting with your local Congressman, or engaged in a media blitz around your latest paper, you'll generate ripples that can lead to surprising and gratifying results.”
― Nancy Baron, Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science Matter

“In an editorial, the journal Nature warned that one of the dangers of winning the Nobel Prize is that people attempt to enlist you for all sorts of causes.' It particularly cited Scientists and Engineers for America and its opposition to Bush science policies, though "there is little doubt that US federal science has suffered under Bush," the editors wrote. By engaging in partisan behavior, the journal warned, scientists risk "seeming to be self-interested, grant-obsessed, and out of touch."
Actually, I think the reverse is true. It is remaining at the bench when times call for action that defines researchers as self-obsessed. As Burton Richter, a Stanford
physicist, Nobel laureate, and founder and board member of SEA wrote in response to the Nature editorial, the organization's aim "is to make available to society at large the evidence-based science relating to critical issues facing us all." He added, "We hope both to draw attention to underappreciated science issues and provide the advocacy necessary to get things done-not along party-political lines but scientifically."4”
― Cornelia Dean, Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public

“Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill,one of the prime reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It's not just a question of how-to, you see; it's a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft