There are few who dare to cross the rift between the North and
South campuses of UCLA.
Students who can recite the elements of the periodic table may
seldom associate with those who know Hamlet’s “to be or
not to be” soliloquy by heart.
But just as there are authors behind literature’s greatest
works, and individual students behind the printed bylines of the
Daily Bruin, there are people and stories behind every great
discovery or breakthrough in the innumerable fields of science.
Science, especially at a large research university like UCLA, is
sometimes seen as a faceless institution. The difficult process of
research and the technical language of scientific publications can
sometimes be far removed from any traces of human touch.
This year, the Daily Bruin Science and Health section is barely
entering its terrible twos. So perhaps I am too ambitious when I
say our articles will provide science with the voices and the faces
that are too often unheard and unseen.
But we’ll try.
Science writing, I’ve realized, is not about listing
lifeless facts from organic chemistry textbooks or compacting the
fundamental laws of physics into a 25-inch article. It’s
about explanation through illustration and illustration through
painting a portrait of the people who create the science and the
people who are affected by it.
Science writing is the job of breathing life into the equations
on a page and the scribbles in a lab notebook. Anyone who’s
chugged through those equations or scribbled in a lab notebook
themselves may sympathize that this is not an easy task.
If we do our jobs well, we hope not only to keep the members of
the scientific community informed about happenings on their side of
the arena, but also to attract the interest of the student who will
never step within the shadows of CS 50 for a chemistry lecture.
A science writer is on a first name basis with the people of
health sciences media relations. He or she is capable of navigating
through the labyrinth that is the UCLA Medical Center. A science
writer must perform the balancing act of explaining complicated
research and technology in the colloquial language of your friendly
neighborhood newspaper.
And then there is the actual process of pounding out the
paragraphs of a story, which, as a journalist in any section of the
newspaper might agree, is not unlike the steps in the scientific
method: smooth, supported, and sequential.
So, there you have it. The objective of the science section is
to reveal the true processes of science and the true nature of the
people who love it and live it. My hypothesis is that the articles
of the section will bring to life the research that occurs behind
closed doors at UCLA.
Our only materials will be a few articles on Page 3, a creative
graphic, or an explanatory chart. The conclusion can be drawn by
you, the reader, no matter from which side of the campus you hail.
We’ll do our best to meet you in the middle.
Chou is the Daily Bruin’s 2003-2004 Science editor
E-mail her at jchou@media.ucla.edu.