DARC blog instructions to authors
Aim:
To provide a space for the members of DARC to:
- communicate and advertise their research,
- engage with scientists and non-scientists to increase awareness of data assimilation,
- inspire people to enter a career in data assimilation and encourage more diversity in a maths-heavy discipline,
- highlight some of the scientific challenges that data assimilation needs to address,
- celebrate achievements of DARC members.
Scope:
The types of blogs include but are not limited to:
- summary of research,
- tutorial on concepts related to data assimilation,
- demonstration of the connection of DA to other research areas. This could be tied into international days e.g. World Meteorological Day, International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction…,
- summary of conferences, workshops, summer schools etc. attended,
- personal perspectives on the subject area.
Frequency:
every 2-4 weeks
Editor:
Quarterly rotation so volunteers needed!
Length:
Roughly 300-800 words including 1-2 figures with captions and alt-text. If it is too long you will likely be asked to make significant cuts.
Style:
The content should be understandable to anyone with a general interest in science and mathematics. The style should be:
- Formal but non-technical, use short sentences and paragraphs and avoid jargon.
- Entertaining and engaging, try to provide a clear narrative.
- Should not contain content that we do not feel is representative of DARC.
- Active voice and the use of subheadings andtransition words is encouraged
- A summary of research blog could follow the structure of
- ‘What problem are you studying?’ (summarise the question addressed, why it is important, what is already known and what the gap in knowledge is that you tackle),
- ‘What was your approach?’ (emphasise the novelty of your methods and why they are appropriate for the research question),
- ‘What did you learn?’ (Summarise results and include areas where more work needs to be done),
- ‘Who will benefit from your research?’ (Make the connection to other research areas and the ultimate end-users. This could come full circle back to the original problem).
References:
Include references and links for further reading.
Initial submission:
Send Word doc including in-line figures with alt text and keywords to the current editor and Alison a.m.fowler@reading.ac.uk, one week before publication.
Review:
Your blog will be reviewed by the editor and sent back to you to make (usually) minor corrections. You will then need to send the corrected Word document back to the editor before the publication date.
Correction post-publication:
Please contact the editor immediately should you notice any errors in your published blog, either from yourself or in the formatting process.