Lessons in writing and science - Taylor made for you

While fortunate students gain some technical writing training as undergraduates, most scientific writing education begins in earnest during graduate school. I firmly believe that scientific writing and scientific thinking skills are a core legacy of Dr. William W. Taylor- Bill. Sharing his writing guidance was not limited to his students. Collaborators, peers, and recipients of peer reviews benefitted from his editing skills. Talking with others in the Taylor-verse, many core methods from Bill's early mentoring years still hold true. I offer these lessons to both honor Bill and share his tactics with the broader fisheries community.Bill's mentoring style was straightforward, thoughtful, and always kind. He was very direct in his written comments when reviewing scientific products. Three key Taylor-isms formed a core of his approach - Who Says? Why? Who Cares? While an outside observer might think the comments terse and overly direct, Bill always took time early on to talk through the meaning of the comments. In early meetings, he provided full context and continually added nuance and guided us through his process. For most early project or early career drafts of documents, Bill provided comments and feedback in person and in a relaxed setting. These meetings were usually at the Crossroads Cafe in the International Center of Michigan State University (MSU). These feedback meetings also provided lessons in relationship building, networking, and professional service. Finally, as writing skills developed, he added peer-review to our tasks and toolkit. Bill mentored us in reviewing the work of others and our responsibilities as scientists.The process was typically a caffeine-fueled discussion with either coffee or Mountain Dew, depending on the time of day. While we met to get the targeted content reviewed and scoped next steps, there was also always time to check in on how you and your family were doing. Attention deviated not only from the document and your conversation but also to the wider ecosystem. Bill was consistently scanning the horizon for folks that he knew and needed to connect with or folks that he wanted to introduce to you. Whether it was an undergraduate that might show potential as an intern, someone who dealt with MSU property (and could secure a new lab vehicle quicker), a visiting scientist, or a dean or higher-level administrator, Bill saw them and called them in. Breaks were obviously random but Taylorites quickly understood that developing relationships was another key part of Bill's approach to work. Every relationship was honest and genuine, as Bill relishes working with people. Regardless of how long a conversation took, Bill always knew exactly where we left off with our discussion and picked it up smoothly and effectively. I know the scientific literature says that people cannot really multitask. I am not so sure about that with Bill because it sure seems like he does. I always left these meetings with a sense of accomplishment and a clear pathway forward.Who Says? -With these two words, Bill was asking for a relevant citation and a knowledge base that surrounded using that citation. He encouraged us to avoid unsupported claims or concepts in a paper unless testing a new concept - and it better be new! Bill expected folks to dig deeply into the literature. Before Google Scholar or Web of Science, we used a Scientific Citation Index book - Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA). Literature searches were an iterative manual process where you would look through the ASFA volumes by year and find your species and topics, then manually retrieve the journals from the MSU stacks. Bill instructed us on triaging these resources to minimize dead ends, photocopying time, or reprint postcard requests. This triage included reading the full abstract, scanning figures and tables and understanding the discussion take-homes. Once you had located relevant papers, he had us dig deep into the paper including paying attention to authors that the paper was citing. This was an effective way to get to the roots of a foundational concept fastest. He also always reminded us to secure each paper - “don't use a secondary citation, take the time to secure it and read it.” Searches are much easier now. However, a functional understanding of Bill's information triage seems even more relevant in an era of information overload. By triaging papers, digging into those papers, and finding older science cited in core papers, we gain skills to build upon a solid knowledge base more efficiently. This approach provided us a head start to any project.Why? This was sometimes the most challenging and frustrating comment to deal with, but it was one that taught us how to think independently. This question drove us to explain a process or approach in our own words. As an example, an editing round might ask why do you focus so little on abiotic here? You would then dig deeply into that topic. The next round of edits would question why you focused so much on the abiotic – what about the biotic controls? At the time, this approach sometimes seemed circular but we quickly (or in my case not so quickly) recognized the purpose was to look at all sides of an issue. Scientists probe and ask questions. His approach was an effective tool that promoted going deeper into a topic while developing stronger critical thinking. Many times a “why?” would be associated with a diagram. As a visual learner, I found this approach helped me to gain insight into a topic from multiple different angles, which helped make my writing more clear. Drawing out models and concepts was a specialty of Bill's. Through this approach, we had practical training in both the Scientific Method and the Taylor Eight Steps of Fisheries Management. While Bill taught these concepts well in class, applying them to our own planning, studies, and writing enabled us to explain “why?” I think all of us that worked with Bill have a science foundation that makes the methods and steps almost automatic and a part of who we are as fisheries professionals.Who cares? While not commonly used, this was shorthand for- why is this important? The comment could apply to two situations. The first use was when you were on too much of a tangent. A topic might be of interest but took away from your core message and obscured an effective story. Bill used this to keep us on course and also often identified a new project! The second use was a reminder to know your audience. He encouraged us to work towards constantly telling a story - one that was relevant to our target audience. It was during this point of editing that Bill encouraged us to find our own best approach to our narratives. He also was a master at teaching and recognizing the nuances among a report/thesis/dissertation, a publication, a proposal, or a review. Bill encouraged talks with angling and other non-scientific audiences that helped us understand the core resource users better. These talks helped us to translate technical writing into effective presentations. This would circle back to improve and simplify our writing. The lesson here was that our presentations were by nature a story and if we work to connect our presentations to our writing, the storytelling becomes more fluidAs our writing efficiency grew, Bill would start to engage us in the peer review process. This experience was an effective way to vet other writing approaches, learn about science critique, and hone grammatical and citation checking skills. While reviewing is often a thankless task, Bill emphasized its importance as a member of the scientific community. He emphasized the benefits of being broadly read and to considering new ideas that were sometimes contrary to ours. For many of us, reviews were our entree into a scientist's role in service. Reviewing progressed into service for the fisheries profession through the American Fisheries Society (AFS). Bill introduced us to folks in fisheries, from local to national, many of whom became lifelong peers or collaborators. He also encouraged us to become involved in a range of services from local meeting logistics to National and International symposia organization. Bill always knew where we could help improve something, learn something, and contribute to a larger science enterprise.When mentoring for writing and all things science, Bill invested time and energy to discover how to individually mentor us and help us succeed. As I read papers by other Taylorites, I see a common foundation of scientific rigor, academic candor, and storytelling. We also share common writing traits of being well-cited and probing scientifically for a targeted audience. I think we all have a passion for applied science as well- otherwise Who Cares! A legacy and testament to Bill's skill as a mentor is that he fostered our own unique writing voice and scientific styles. Thanks Bill.