read before you write

day 3: read before you write

12/18/2018

Read before you write #EpiWritingChallenge

why spend time reading when I could be writing?

While writing regularly is an exercise in “practice makes perfect”, to truly provide good science communication, you should be absorbing information from your environment, allowing it to influence what you put back out.

Never stop learning, never stop reading.

Reading is a key step in sustaining a writing habit and improving your writing overall.

If you're interested in "Storytelling in Science", reading press releases and science news is important to develop that skill (in contrast to manuscripts and abstracts).

In the Crystal Clear Writing series, we'll talk about another role that keeping up on the science literature plays.

keeping up with the literature

Keeping up on current literature is a beast all its own.

You can set up search alerts via PubMed (great for updating your dissertation literature reviews).

You can sign up for table of content alerts on journal websites.

You can follow your favorite journals on Twitter and review their feeds for articles they share.

Gathering your reading is step 1 - but reading it is step 2.

Just as you should put aside time during the day to read and answer emails, you should also put aside time during the week to actually read those articles in your inbox.

Remember on Day 2 we talked about Scheduling Time and Making Space?