200 Words
Jeff Young, Senior editor, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Journalists and scientists often have completely different views of time when it comes to publishing. To scientists, it seems that reporters want flashes of lightning, news reports delivered an instant after something happened in the lab. To reporters, it seems that scientists prefer to publish only after information has accumulated as slowly and as immutably as the strata of a rock formation. A scholarly journal editor once told me how frustrated he was about how long it took for a scientific paper to go from submitted to published, and he was trying to use technology to close that gap. Of course he was worried about pushing it too far. No matter how fast that process gets, journalists might always want to see the latest articles, the latest findings, even faster.
It seems that the Internet has already allowed for some flash science in many ways. A few researchers are beginning to keep blogs of their work as they prepare their latest books or research projects. Some groups of researchers post thoughts and reflections from their work online each day. Even non-blogging researchers often have detailed Web pages about their labs or their personal research interests. As a journalist always looking for the latest from technology researchers: thank you for blogging.