Admission Requirements
Science Journalism is a 13-week course which is part of the Science Communication and Society specialisation. This course is also available in Dutch for native Dutch students as 'wetenschapsjournalistiek'.
The course is open to MSc students from the Faculty of Science and to MSc students in the Biomedical Sciences programme of LUMC. Other students who are interested in following this course, should contact their own study advisor for permission.
NOTE: There is a limited amount of spots available for students who want to follow this course as an elective course and who are not following the SCS specialisation. Make sure to register in time to secure a spot in the course.
Please apply for this course through this registration form.
Description
In this course, you will learn how to write a good story about science news and how to pick the most suitable genre of journalistic writing for a particular (science) story. You will write and revise various types of articles, conduct interviews and discuss and critically reflect upon popular scientific articles from various (news) outlets. The overall aim of the course is to write articles that are fit for publication and to be able to write in an engaging and accessible manner about complex scientific topics.
Course Objectives
After completion of Science Journalism, students are able to:
Write various science journalism texts: news items, features, interviews and blogs
Determine what is newsworthy and assess how news is presented in news articles
Provide peers with useful and constructive feedback
Organize, prepare and conduct an interview about a scientific topic
Design an attractive lay-out and produce or suggest supportive infographics and/or photographs
Explain scientific information to a general audience in a written format
Present themselves and their skills in a competitive (online) market
Revise their own text by adequately incorporating feedback
Timetable
Preliminary schedule: Classes will take place on Thursday afternoon 13:15 – 16:00h from September 5 – November 28, 2024. Room schedule will follow. Various lectures will also have journalists as invited guest speakers.
Mode of Instruction
Lectures, in-class activities, self-study
Assessment Method
This course will be assessed through written assignments. The assignments will be evaluated according to rubrics that will be discussed in class and which can be found on Brightspace. The final grade for this course will be the average of all grades obtained for the assignments. This average may be adjusted positively or negatively depending on your adherence to deadlines and on the quality of your feedback on other students’ texts.
Reading List
Optional: Science Journalism – An Introduction by Martin W. Angler
Angler, M. (2017). Science Journalism: An Introduction (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315671338
Registration
Please apply for this course through this registration form. You also need to register via MyStudyMap (uSis).
Contact
For any information regarding this course or the SCS specialisation in general you can contact our department through: infoscs@biology.leidenuniv.nl.
Remarks
n/a