I am happy that my book Survival Guide for Scientists, published about a month ago, is selling very well. Today I went through the final proofs of the second edition. Corrections were only minor (some inconsistencies in italic versus roman fonts will be corrected). Up to now the marketing has only been done in the Netherlands. Shortly, our US-publisher will take care of that part of the market.

From the reactions I conclude that my expectation that the book would also be useful for non-scientists, turns out to be more than correct: lawyers, consultants and managers buy the book. And parents buy it for their university-going children. Tell me your opinion about the book.

PowerPoint does not help
I have seen quite some historical developments with respect to visible aids used to clarify oral scientific presentations. I have seen talks illustrated with, slides being projected through a slide projector, transparencies made visible with an overhead projector, and - now - digital slides that come to the audience through a beamer. But with all these modern developments, which certainly seem to look like improvements, a lot of things have not changed for the better. Presenters going way over their time. Showing of bad slides (ugly, busy, unclear, …). Too Much Information (TMI). Much too high level for the audience. Why does this situation continue? My answer: a.o. lack of feedback. (Fig. Uncle Sam)

Left or right
In western societies we write from left to right. In mundane texts lines are left justified. This alignment allows for quick reading. You do not know yet what will be in the new line, but you (and above all your eyes) sure know where it begins. You can improve readability by implementing full justification. But only if you use a lot of hyphenation and micro-space adjustment. Otherwise you get those ugly stretched sentences that hamper reading, rather than facilitating it. If you use MS-Word and full justification use the WordPerfect compatibility switch, as explained here.

Presenting science in front of an audience invariably implies presentation of slides, either as support for the spoken text, or as the main ingredient of the presentation. I always wonder why these slides are so ill-designed: awful contrast, extremely busy, inconsistent lay-out through the slide show, wildly varying font sizes etc. The metaphors that come to mind are that of an elementary school playground or (comparison from a colleague of mine) that of an indoor swimming pool full of children. (picture © Kilian-Nakamura.com 2007).But we scientists are amateurs with respect to design of graphics. So let us see how the professionals do this.