When
Tuesday 4th Feb, 12:00 pm

Where
Room B3

Hashtag
#T12

Presenters

Janet Salisbury

Richard Stanford

Malini Devadas

Abstract

 Janet Salisbury, Rob Morrison and others have been promoting the idea of an Australian science style guide since the early 2000s. In 2007, this was discussed at a science editors 1-day workshop Janet ran as a satellite of the 2007 World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne. Various options were considered but never went ahead because of the enormous volunteer effort involved. Janet has also had similar discussions with the editing community — with the same enthusiastic response but no capacity for developing the manual.

Meanwhile, Biotext has been working at the coalface of science writing and editing and has developed its own inhouse science and technical style resources, which we are currently developing into a Australian science and technical style manual to bring to the market later in the year as a printed (book) and online resource.

It seems that this product requires a commercial basis (as evidenced by the fact that it has never go off the ground without it) and, after years of procrastinating, we are getting on with the job. However, to be a useful and respected Australian resource, we would like to engage with ASC and other science-based institutions, as we move through the final development stages.

At this very informal session, we will describe our concept and progress to date and discuss how ASC members can get involved in the next stages. It will also be a chance to air your pet likes and dislikes so as to ensure we include those in the manual.