{"id":9281,"date":"2019-10-18T17:28:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T21:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metcalfinstitute.org\/?p=9281"},"modified":"2025-09-02T12:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T16:59:14","slug":"julia-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/julia-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Julia Scott<\/a> adds new meaning to the term \u201cdiving into a story.\u201d  An alumna of  Metcalf\u2019s 2007 Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists, her experiential reporting style has taken her inside an iron lung<\/a> after interviewing a woman who relies on the device to breathe. \u201cThe experience really informed my reporting,\u201d said Scott.  She continued this experiential approach toward her reporting for a New York Times Magazine article, when she went 28 days without using soap<\/a> to learn, first hand, the benefits of a living bacterial skin tonic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe few times that I\u2019ve done it, it\u2019s taught me that stories in which you make yourself the proxy for a reader and discover the topic together make you a more humble source of information, and also create an opportunity for the reader to really see themselves in the story,\u201d said Scott.<\/p>\n

A fulltime freelance writer, Scott has covered a wide range of environmental stories throughout her career, including efforts by scientists to produce heat-tolerant lettuce<\/a> in the face of climate change, and a story about a science-based maple syrup technique<\/a> developed to address extreme weather concerns. Her approach has been very successful, as indicated by Scott\u2019s inclusion in \u201cThe Best American Science Writing 2010\u201d for her reporting on the role of pesticides in mysterious bee deaths.<\/p>\n

Scott says her Metcalf experience at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) has helped inform her writing.  \u201cI would say that at the time I attended Metcalf, I was trying to understand how local and national stories were connected,\u201d said Scott.  \u201cAnd Metcalf gave me the tools to make those connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s interactions with GSO researchers through her fellowship also helped her gain a better appreciation for the communication challenges faced by some scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that really struck me was the fact that scientists really have trouble communicating with the public,\u201d said Scott.  \u201cIt became clear to me that journalists have a responsibility to act as translators in that relationship, and not only simplify what could be complicated (for the audience), but convey complicated ideas in a way that can be fun and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of fun and interesting, Scott recently published a book called Drivel: Deliciously Bad Writing by Your Favorite Authors<\/i><\/a>, a collection of \u201cesoteric poetry (bad); incoherent and illogical short stories (worse); bumfuzzling proto-journalism (shameful); and pretentious, overwrought journal entries (we\u2019ll not speak of this again)\u201d by famous writers that, according to Scott, illustrates the fact that greatness does not come in one day.<\/p>\n

Scott is currently taking a social science approach to a piece she\u2019s working on for the San Francisco Magazine about polyamory in the San Francisco area, the practice of engaging in open relationships.<\/p>\nRead More Alumni Profiles<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julia Scott adds new meaning to the term \u201cdiving into a story.\u201d  An alumna of  Metcalf\u2019s 2007 Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists, her experiential reporting style has taken her inside an iron lung after interviewing a woman who relies on the device to breathe. \u201cThe experience really informed my reporting,\u201d said Scott.  She continued this experiential approach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2195,"featured_media":9568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-reporting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9281"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13761,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281\/revisions\/13761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}