Snippet Handbook
In this document you’ll find everything you need to start the snippet writing process. However, should you have any questions which require more detailed answers, or on a subject not covered by this document, it is best to email the Snippets Editor at snippets@the-gist.org.
A snippet is a short article for the GIST website, typically between 200 and 400 words in length. Snippets usually cover a piece of recent science news or explore any topic relating to the sciences, engineering or technology. Just like any good science writing, snippets should still be well written, have nicely structured arguments (if required) and appropriate references. But due to the shortness of a snippet it is not required for you to give an in-depth explanation of the science involved, just a nice overview. The aim of a snippet is to communicate these stories in a way that is accessible and understandable to a wide audience of non-experts.
Websites such as EurekAlert!, Science and Science Daily can be good sources of inspiration when choosing a topic.
For examples of past snippets, see http://the-gist.org/category/snippet/
Snippets also include a title, by-line, image and references – more information of these below.
Snippets are published every Saturday at noon. The snippet lifecycle, from notification email to publication, take 23 days: 2 weeks to submit a draft followed by 1 week of editing. Snippets are produced using a rota system. Contributors will receive an email to notify them of their turn on the rota, and to tell them when their deadline is. A notification email is sent to the next person on the rota every Thursday (23 days prior to publishing day)
Once you receive this email, it is important that you confirm the topic you wish to write about with the Snippets Editor as soon as possible. This is to ensure that no one on the rota is already covering the topic.
You will then have two weeks to produce a first draft of your snippet including a provisional title, by-line, image and references. The Snippets Editor will return written feedback on your snippet as soon as possible. You will then have several days to finalize your snippet for publication. The final version is due one week after the submission of your first draft – the Thursday before publication. Your snippet will then be published on the following Saturday.
If you receive the notification email and are unable to meet the deadline given, you must inform the Snippets Editor as soon as possible so that cover can be arranged.
At the moment, each contributor on the rota is expected to produce a snippet about twice in a year. There may occasionally be opportunities to write more often than this if cover is needed for someone skipping their turn on the rota.
Each snippet needs a title! Titles should give a glimpse of what your snippet is about and attract the reader’s interest. Titles should be no more than 50 characters in length. theGIST archives is a good place to look for inspiration.
Each snippet needs a by-line! This is short description of your snippet. While the title and image will first grab a reader’s attention, the by-line should provide more information, making them want to click on and read the full snippet. Again, consult theGIST archives for previous examples. By-lines should be no longer than 170 characters or they won’t display fully on the website.
Each snippet needs an image! All images must be free and legal to use – usually this means they are licensed under Creative Commons. Good sources of Creative Commons-licensed images are:
Images must be in landscape orientation to display correctly on the website. You may provide an image caption if you wish. You can also provide an additional image, such as a diagram, to go in the body of the main text if this helps the clarity of the piece.
Alternatively, you can create your own image. Again, this must be in landscape and must not include copyrighted material. Avoid having a blank white background to your image as this doesn’t look good on the front page of the website. However, such blank spaces are acceptable if you are creating an image to be included within the main text.
Please send the link to the image you wish to use, rather than including it as an attachment or embedding it in an email (unless it is an image you’ve created yourself).
Each snippet needs references! We are not a journal, so links you provide should be helpful for non-academics and general interest readers. Similarly, you don’t need to worry about using a particular referencing style (e.g. Vancouver). Your footnote should include whatever information is helpful to the reader. Remember to ensure that the links you use are not hidden behind a subscription paywall – the reader might not have access to specialist journals, for example.
To insert a footnote that will display correctly on our website, references must be included within [note] tags. The easiest way to do this is to use the “insert footnote” feature within the “reference tab” of Microsoft Word (or similar features for other software).
References should be inserted at the end of the sentence but before the punctuation. This will create a footnote on the website, with any writing in the footnote tags displaying at the bottom of the article.
For example in the text it should appear as:
And in the footnote as:
In general, keep your references short in number and accessible in content. It is fine to cite a journal article if you need to, but keep it to a minimum and focus on links and sources that the reader will be more able to access and understand.
You can submit your snippet either as a Word file (preferable) or as a Google Doc. The Snippets Editor will use the ‘track changes’ feature when editing your snippet. This means that you can see exactly what changes the Editor has made and then accept or reject each change.
If submitting a Google Doc: You can send a Google Doc by clicking on ‘File’ and then ‘Share’. You can either ‘share’ by entering an email address and getting a ‘shareable link’. Remember to make sure the ‘can edit’ option is selected (rather than ‘can view’ or ‘can comment’). If you do not share the file with these editing privileges, the Snippets Editor will not be able to add suggestions to your snippet.
When you send your article to us, please also include 3-4 tags, or key words, that people can search to find your article. Tags can be anything from ‘physics’ to ‘cognition’.
First time writers must agree to have their work published by theGIST under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license before any work is published. This can be done by sending the following statement to the Snippets Editor by email:
Please also send a short author bio to the Snippets Editor - this will be published alongside all your work on the website.
If you wish to write science communication, you must first read science communication! Look at the style other authors have developed and use this to help figure out your own writing style.
Keep your writing as simple as possible. Snippets should be engaging and accessible to a wide audience.
This is not academic writing, so limit your use of jargon or overly technical terms as much as possible, providing brief explanations of such words when appropriate. Remember that your reader may not be familiar with your field of expertise.
Include an introduction paragraph to give the reader an overview of the snippet.
Before submitting your snippet, you may wish to check if you have included any of these noted writing habits that scientists often fall into. Remember that writing gets better with practice and that the Snippets Editor is here to support you in developing your writing.
Happy writing!
SAMPLE 1
Dark Matter
Rebecca Douglas looks at new results in measuring dark matter.
Image link:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/centaurusA_20
09.html
Image credit: NASA
Caption: A Black Hole Overflows from Galaxy Centaurus A
The universe contains 4.9% normal matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy. According to Einstein, energy and matter are interchangeable so that makes 84.5% dark "stuff" in the Universe. Dark matter is thought to be partly made up of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPS and can help explain the formation of galaxies, which
without it would drift apart.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station (ISS) has preliminary results published this month in Physical Review Letters, which may be the first direct detection of dark matter. It looks for positrons and electrons which would be produced when WIMPs collide with each other and annihilate [note]Great paper by Cholis and Hooper: Dark matter and pulsar origins of the rising cosmic ray positron fraction in light of new data from AMS [/note]. One important observation made by the experiment is that the electrons and positrons seem to fall on the AMS from all directions equally. A directional bias might indicate a specific source for the dark matter, such as a neutron star.
It is hoped that these findings will be supported by dark matter experiments on Earth, such as the DarkSide-50 experiment in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, which aim to make more direct measurements by measuring the interactions WIMPS go through when passing through containers of elements xenon or argon, deep underground [note]Also worth a look: Meyers et al, DarkSide-50: A Direct Search for Dark Matter with New Techniques for Reducing Background [/note].
SAMPLE 2
ZOMG!!! Chemicals!!!
Craig McInnes talks about the public’s recent exposure to (Z)-hex-3-enal and its wider ramifications.
Image: Attached
Image Caption: Isomerization of grass scented (Z)-hex-3-enal (leaf aldehyde) to unscented (E)-hex-2-enal
Image Credit: Craig McInnes
Very recently I was reminded of a very specific chemical, a chemical that goes by the scary-name of (Z)-hex-3-enal, a chemical that, believe it or not, most of us have probably been exposed to, a chemical so reactive that it can only be described as unstable, a simple molecule, but one that may well trigger memories from your childhood and could be described as mood-altering. In fact, there’s a high probability that in the last week or two you’ve inhaled this chemical. It’s also a chemical synonymous with the word grass. Quick! Lock up your children, break out the gas masks, ZOMG!!! Chemicals!!!
Or you could do none of those things and look up the hashtag #Chemophobia, realize that I’m pulling your leg and that you’ve been had. “But wait, mood-altering, unstable, other scary words you used” you might protest. That’s cool, don’t worry, I was purposefully misleading you. (Z)-Hex-3-enal, or leaf aldehyde as it’s also known, is nothing more than the chemical you smell when someone has just cut the grass. “But mood-altering?” Yup, who doesn’t smile when they smell that familiar scent? And to pre-empt your other questions, dear imaginary-reader that I’m having this conversation with, who doesn’t remember smelling that smell in the park one childhood summer? (Thus - memory triggering.) Even the word unstable, which could easily have been taken out of context, is making reference to the fact that this chemical degrades (isomerizes to be more precise) into a slightly different chemical (E)-hex-2-enal, which doesn’t smell of freshly cut grass; neither compound will do you harm [note] Hempfling et al in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2013[/note].
So was this whole reading experience a waste of time? Well, I hope not. Try to remember that the word chemical isn’t necessarily as scary as it initially sounds and the next time that someone uses the blanket phrase “nasty chemicals” ask yourself, “is this particular chemical nasty, or is this all being taken out of context?” If you do that, hopefully you can then do some reading of your own to negate scaremongering. You might even be able to add back some of that much needed context. If in doubt, jump onto twitter (or leave a comment below) and ask a chemist. Turns out they’re everywhere and they like to talk.
Edited (LB):10/11/21