Given that the point of this blog is to get some science-writing practice and get better at it, I’m always happy to receive comments.
My email is edyong209 AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk.
(It’s written that way to stop spammers from taking my precious email address and using it for evil)
Not Exactly Rocket Science 
hey dude, this might be worth writing about on Rocket Science?
reading beyond the ‘drug for Downs’ headline – which it patently isn’t (yet) – there’s an interesting story about what causes Downs’ mental retardation and how it might be treated… one day… no?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=F9E196DB-E7F2-99DF-385C9F38537F58D6&ref=rss
h
Or you can post here, like Henry did.
Apparently email is, like, soooo twentieth century…
You need to proof read before publishing. I believe that you meant “from” instead of “form” in your opening statement. Yes, No?
Further reading would indicate that your are not exactly at the same level as those to which you are pointing a finger.
For a commentary to be credible, regardless of the writer education, one must write as though our education background is more than necessary to make the commentary.
This is accomplished, for the most part, by our spelling and a grammatically correct editorial.
If you wish to write about sports, cars or games then no one will one if you have a brain or not but when you tackle scientific documentation you really need to be credible in your remarks.
Okaaayyy, I was going to delete this for reasons of startling arrogance, but it’s actually proven funnier to proofread it instead.
So…
Line 1) Proofread is one word not two.
Line 2) “Yes? No?” not “Yes, No?”
Line 3) “YOU are not”, not “YOUR are not…”
Line 5) “The writer’S education” not “the writer education”
Line 6) The pronoun “our” doesn’t make sense in light of the use of “one” in the previous line.
Line 10) No one with one??? Surely “mind”?
I do this in my spare time, sometimes staying up fairly late at night. I’d love to proofread everything to perfection but sadly, life gets in the way.
Anyway, Joe, I think you meant to say “Please proofread more carefully.” But you didn’t – you went off on a long verbose diatribe, in which you clearly *tried* very hard to sound important and clever. But you haven’t, have you? You have in fact come across as arrogant, pompous and more than a little hypocritical.
Ed, this is hilarious! I wonder if there is a continuation to this.
@Joe give Ed a break! He is a superb writer who takes his precious time to author this blog.
Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it? No further word from Mr Barnett, although his name is now flagged for moderation. I think we all have better things to do with our time than proofread the comments of arrogant, rude posters.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Sandesh 🙂
Hellow Ed.,
Congratulations on your winning the Telegraph award.
One small pedantic point-S. Aureus does not “belong to the same bacterial group that includes B. Anthracis or B Cerus”.
If i’m teaching Granny to suck eggs, my apologies; but the statement appeared above your by-line.
Regards,
Grahame Crow FIBMS
Hi Grahame,
Thanks for your comment. What I meant was that they’re all gram-positive bacteria – I wanted to say that in an easy way, and didn’t have enough word count to go into it in greater detail. Sorry if it was too ambiguous.
E
I run a cafepress.com store named Trilobite Clothing, which features
paleontology-designed clothes. I started it because I love
paleontology, and well, I need money to pay tuition for college! I am
wondering if there would be any place on your blog for a mention of my
website. I do understand if you are against mentioning commercial
websites, but I would be very grateful for any mention or linking
action you could provide!
Also, I would love to know if you have seen about my store on any
other blogs or websites, as it tells me whether my shameless promotion
is working!
The URL is http://www.cafepress.com/trilobite
Thanks!
Hi Marek – yeah sure, I’ll stick a link up. I have no hard and fast rule about linking to commercial websites, but it essentially boils down to “nothing rubbish”. I like your T-shirts – have heard about them before from The Evilutionary Biologist.
E
As a proofreader, I, too, got a charge out of Joe Barnett’s remarks. I “think” that, in the 10th line, instead of “one” he meant to write “… no one will *wonder* if you have a brain …”? Hey, everyone’s a critic!!!
Hey Ed,
Great blog, I stumbled upon it whilst researching for an essay paper on cuttlefish camouflage and went off on a tangent, It really doesn’t take a lot to distract me.
Noticed you work for Cancer research UK, fantastic, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer last year (almost fully recovered now) and now try and raise funds for the cause.
Keep up the good work!!!!!
Antony