From Prof. Ksiazek‘s visit on W 09/21/11 (and the annotated pdf of his example from yahoo news.):
Audience analysis

Who is your audience?
What sources of information can I use to better understand my audience?
What is their prior …

Obviously, these examples are off-limits…
Example of a MotW paper/topic

Manganese(II)-Containing MRI Contrast Agent Employing a Neutral and Non-Macrocyclic Ligand

Examples of “Science in the News”

Superconductors: how do they work? Better with magnets, apparently
Electrified Bacterial Filaments Remove Uranium …

Here is a collection of posts that may be useful as you work on your first writing assignment:
Writing

So you’re writing your first post…
Chemical Information?
A few of my favorite books on writing
Quick tips to improve your …

“A month in the laboratory can often save an hour in the library.”
— Frank H. Westheimer
A wealth of information exists outside of Google, although both Google and Google Scholar are powerful tools. How …

A new study published in Science hints at a connection between sleep (or lack thereof) and the development of Alzheimer’s disease.  In both mice and humans, amyloid-beta peptide levels rose during waking hours, but then fell …

You found an article that really grabbed your attention and you cannot wait to share it. Great! So where do you begin? Start by choosing a specific idea, fact, or result and use it to …

I’m all for wind and solar power, but the main obstacle to moving away from fossil fuels and toward these renewable energies is the ability to store the energy when the sun isn’t shining …

So you’re working on your Molecule of the Week assignment and you’re looking at your molecule in Mercury and thinking Wow this is hideous. How am I going to make this look presentable? If you’re …

In keeping with the current ‘writing’ theme, here are my favorite books on writing. I think of the first four as ‘must haves’ though I obviously have them all!

The Elements of Style, The (4th Edition) …

It’s probably just coincidence… yeah, that’s probably it.

7. Become a great writer.
No matter what field you hope to go into, and no matter what job you hope to have in that field, writing skills will …

It should be obvious by now that writing for the sciences is much different than for the arts and humanities (though it doesn’t have to be), and learning the distinctions requires practice. In this list …