“I hated writing growing up,” Rachel Yang lamented in an essay she wrote for Science Careers this year. “It felt like navigating a chaotic jungle, where creative types swung easily among the tangled vines, while I clung petrified on a low-hanging limb, unsure where to reach next.”
It’s a struggle that was clearly on many readers’ minds this year, given the popularity of Yang’s essay and others we published about academic writing and publishing. Some focused on the craft, including the back and forth with co-authors that is inherent to so much academic publishing. Others reflected on the content, asking whether it is OK to take risks in grant proposals or write papers about experiments that didn’t work.
As part of our Working Life section, a weekly series that explores lessons scientists learn as they pursue their careers, we also published essays about scientific fraud, moving internationally, mentoring, and more. Here are the most read ones from the past year, to offer some inspiration and reflection as we head into the new year.
