Aspects of a good popular press article

Insight Into the Color Blindness Gene and Gene Therapy

This web page was produced as an assignment for an undergraduate course at Davidson College.

It takes a certain skill to be able to report scientific discoveries to the general public successfully. The reporter must draw the public in and describe discoveries laden with scientific jargon so that readers around the country (even across the world) understand and enjoy what they are reading. A paper written by Eunice Kua, Michael Reder, and Martha J. Grossel describes common faults and what they believe should be the aim of a popular press reporter.

Here are some guidelines for a good popular press article on a scientific topic as described by Kua et al.:

The article should contain contextual and methodological information as well as results and conclusions made from a discovery.
The article should use at least two of the three rhetoric styles (pathos and logos) to draw in readers and present the discovery in a logical fashion.
The article should be a comprehensive account, not just part of the whole story
Lastly, the article should focus more on what is being discovered than what has already been discovered.

Kua et al. closes with this quote, which I find to be a good summary of their guidelines- “A good translation must be consistent with its source as well as cater to its audience.”

Reference:

Eunice Kua, Michael Reder, and Martha J. Grossel. 2004. Science in the News: A Study of Reporting Genomics. Public Understanding of Science. 13: 309–322.

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