Resource Type: Science writing example

“This feature story, a collaboration between environmental and investigative reporters at the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer, is the flagship story from the two papers’ Big Poultry

View from Big Poultry: How a secretive industry rules the roost in North Carolina

This multimedia article explores the James Webb Space Telescope’s extensive backstory and profiles scientists working on the $10 billion project. The article earned Quanta Magazine the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in

View from The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works.

In this feature for Science magazine, freelance science journalist Joshua Sokol describes how Indigenous Maya are working with Western scholars to understand the ancient Maya astronomy buried by Spanish colonists

View from The Stargazers

Maryn McKenna, senior writer at WIRED and a widely published author, won CASW’s Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting in 2023 for her coverage of infectious diseases

View from The Plague Years: How the rise of right-wing nationalism is jeopardizing the world’s health

Ashley Smart, senior editor at Undark, associate director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, and CASW’s treasurer, won a 2023 NASW Science and Society award for this story.

View from A field at a crossroads: Genetics and racial mythmaking

In this story, freelance science writer Jane Qiu explores how fossil finds in China — dating back to the Peking Man, found in 1929 — have challenged established ideas about

View from The Forgotten Continent

Mike Hixenbaugh’s story on efforts by a Houston hospital to restore patients with severe brain injuries won an AAAS Kavli award in 2018. The story weaves personal narrative with scientific

View from Alive Inside

This feature is the central story of Black Snow, a series by ProPublica and The Palm Beach Post investigating the health impacts – and government failures – of burning sugar

View from The Smoke Comes Every Year. Sugar Companies Say the Air Is Safe.

Matthew Miller’s story about scientists’ efforts to slow the spread of the emerald ash borer won an AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award in 2015. The story focuses on research and

View from Battle of the Ash Borer

Ron Cowen’s story about the entanglement of fundamental particles won an award from the American Institute of Physics in 2016. The story profiles researchers whose discoveries helped to connect quantum

View from The Quantum Source of Space-Time

This story by Ann Gibbons covers research into human sacrifice, spanning different locations and research teams. Gibbons, who was a contributing correspondent for Science magazine at the time, won a

View from The Ultimate Sacrifice

This story — one in a series on financial conflicts of interest in medical research — was part of a package that won CASW’s Victor Cohn Prize in 2013 for

View from What Happened to the Poster Children of OxyContin?

SciShortform published quarterly roundups of exemplary shortform science writing from 2016 through 2020. The volunteer judges highlighted stories in the categories: Short-Shorts, News/Data/Investigative, Single-Study Deep Dives, Essays/Op-eds/Blog posts, Institutional, among

View from SciShortform: Home of the Best Shortform Science Writing Project

This story, which drew attention across social media for its catchy headline and meme-worthy subject, was one of four articles that led Sabrina Imbler to win CASW’s Evert Clark/Seth Payne

View from Started out as a fish. How did it end up like this?