dinosaur Raptorex American Association for the Advancement of Sciencea q — The University of Chicago's Paul Sereno adds a toe claw to a Raptorex skeleton, one of the science stories from the AAAS meeting in 2009. Photograph: AFP/Getty

How to report from a science conference

This article is more than 9 years old

They can break momentous science news, but conferences are also ideal for meeting scientists and fellow writers – and escaping the drudgery of desk work

The closing date for entries to the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize is 11 May 2014

Conferences are critically important sources of material for science writers. Some of the most important stories about modern research have been revealed at these meetings. For example, the results of the first draft reading of the human genome project were outlined at a genetics conference in Lyon in February 2001 and showed – to considerable surprise at the time – that human beings have far fewer genes than had previously been supposed: fewer than 30,000, not the 100,000 or so that many anticipated. The story made headlines round the world, as have many other key breakthroughs announced at conferences – in astronomy, high-energy physics, human evolution and other fields.

For good measure, conferences are first-class places to meet colleagues, gossip, drink and eat too much – and avoid irritating requests for copy from news editors – so most science hacks are happy to head off to major gatherings of researchers as frequently as possible. Favourites, at least for UK science journalists, include the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting – which is held in a different US city every February – and the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual meeting which is held in San Francisco every December.

The number of papers presented at meetings like these is breathtaking. Organisers arrange press briefings for the most important papers and these certainly help. Nevertheless, the sheer mass of science on offer is invariably daunting and for those hoping to cover such events, a great deal of careful organisation and preparation is essential.

You don't simply roll up on the opening day and hope for the best. You have to work in advance, reading a particular day's list of lectures and talks at least 24 hours in advance and from this attempt to calculate who is going to present the most newsworthy paper. If you can contact a promising speaker, you can prepare your piece in advance leaving you more time to work on other stories the next day. This is certainly going to be welcome in the case of the AAAS and the AGU meetings where the workload can be daunting.

As to writing up your stories from the conference, the same rules apply as for any good news story: you should use crisp, short sentences and avoid complex clauses. Verbs should be active while adjectives should be kept to a minimum. Most important of all is your intro – the opening sentence of your story. It should be no more than 26 words and should sum up, as dramatically as possible, the main points of the rest of your story.

File a couple of good tales, tightly told, every day and you will be onto a winner.

Certainly, you should relax in the evenings after you have filed, but not too much. A hangover won't do much for the quality of your work. And finally, never read the comments posted under your stories after publication. They aren't worth the time of day.