Friday, March 22, 2013

Balance: Use it to Your Advantage

Although I acknowledge that giving balance in scientific media can be a waste of time, I believe that giving balance is the key to getting a viewer to actually read your work. There is certainly some skeptics that you seem to be satisfying by splitting columns but I believe scientific media needs those skeptics.

If you are a scientific writer that believes cold hard facts and indisputable information is what is necessary in science writing then you will likely disagree with me. In my personal opinion, if everyone is agreeing on a topic like HIV and Aids, your scientific writing will likely not be read. Readers like to read some sort of controversy or dispute in scientific research. For instance, Scientific breakthroughs tend to tell the story of defying odds and finding final results (balance). The controversy, in some ways, is just as attractive as the actual science. Without that skepticism, people find science to be boring or dry.

You may be thinking, well skeptics have very little factual reinforcement. Why give balance?

As all scientists know, proving something to be 100% right is relatively impossible. The most effective scientific media is done by acknowledging readers lack of knowledge and simply giving both sides of the spectrum. Additionally, giving readers the evidence that one side is clearly more correct than the other is a writers way of proving their point. In a way, using balance to actually reinforce one side.

So I must admit, I agree with Mooney in the sense that giving balance is frustrating and questionable, but I believe balance can be used to a writer's advantage. Although I am a novice scientific writer, I know from my own experiences that balance can actually reinforce the point you are driving. You can satisfy a "critic" by giving them column space, but in return actually be separating scientific fact from skepticism.

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