Welcome to “The Liquid Earth”! This is a website that I’ve implemented for you all to practice writing science articles. It all starts here and as the year goes on, we will practice and develop further, moving into academic writing soon. Writing a science article is an art form, you need to explain complex concepts in a clear and jargon free manner, as your readership will likely not be experts who know what all the complicated terminology means.

So, your first post…

You must write a short blog article on a subject of your choosing. Remember to make it exciting and engaging. You have 500 words to play with, try not to use too many or too few. You will add your article as a “Post”, which when you log in, is accessible via the “+ New” button at the top of the black bar on any page of the website, or you can access it by entering the “Dashboard” and then hovering over “Posts” on the left and then “Add New”.

Some tips for your first post, it can be about any subject that takes your fancy (within the theme “liquid earth..”). You should plan it with the following sections, 1) a hook, 2) some interesting content and 3) your final take home message. Really simple, here is an example that I use in my video below:

My post title: How to age the seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum

1. The Hook: A.  nodosum holdfasts can be over 100 years old.
2. My content: How to age it, look at number of bladders. 5 yrs to first bladder on average (Cousens, 1985).
3. My concluding message: A. nodosum canopies can be many hundreds of years old, but disturbance can take just as long to recover.

Obviously, these need to be fleshed out as prose, but your skeletal outline is essential for a well constructed blog post. You should also practice the three stages of writing. These are all separate and you do not do any at the same time. Stage 1) writing, just write, never delete, never edit, never backspace. Keep trying just to write. 2) Edit, here you only edit, do not add new content. Make a note if you wish to add new. 3) Proof, your final check of grammar, spelling and neatness.

You have two weeks to complete your article which means the deadline is: Friday 8th December 2017.

Here’s a short video explaining how:

Commenting

You can add your article at any point during the next 2 weeks, the earlier the better as you can revisit the site to see comments on your articles by the group and by myself. This feedback must then be used to edit your article.