Skip to content

Roma

International Plain Language Day

  • by

October 13th is International Plain Language Day (IPLDay), a celebration of clear communication and the plain language movement. In Vancouver, we celebrated IPLDay a week early at Communication Convergence, a conference that brought together communicators from different fields for an afternoon of discussion. I’m fairly new to the concept of plain language, and throughout the afternoon I began to reflect on how it fits in with my role as a science communicator.

Read More »International Plain Language Day

Client showcase: UBC Chemistry grant proposals

  • by

Lots of beautiful science happens in the chemistry building at UBC. Photo by Tr1plefilter, 2008 (public domain).The University of British Columbia (UBC)’s Department of Chemistry is housed in one of the most beautiful buildings on campus (which you may have seen in one or two X-Files episodes). But even more beautiful is what goes on inside the building: it’s home to world-class researchers whose work has contributed to groundbreaking discoveries and scientific developments.

And since these scientists are in the same city as Talk Science to Me, we were excited to have an opportunity to work with some of them last month. Talk Science was hired to copy-edit seven grant proposals for funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The proposals we worked on outlined innovative ways to address issues ranging from climate change to cancer treatment.Read More »Client showcase: UBC Chemistry grant proposals

Forget zombie nouns–watch out for vampire verbs

  • by

I don’t often leave a six-hour seminar with more energy than when I came in, but if it’s six hours of language stuff, I’m pumped. This past Saturday the BC branch of the Editors’ Association of Canada hosted a workshop called Eight Step Editing, delivered by veteran editor and writer Jim Taylor, who developed the program in the 1980s. Jim has taught this process literally for as long as I’ve been alive, and I soaked up all the expertise I could. Eight Step Editing provides a framework for the editing process, a systematic way to approach editing that begins with making the fewest changes to the author’s words and becomes progressively more in-depth. I won’t go into the eight steps (you can find a good summary here), but I will share with you what got me so excited.

Read More »Forget zombie nouns–watch out for vampire verbs