Trolling for comments: how authors, bloggers and trolls wrangle with the chemical literature

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org

In October 2010, Royce Murray, the editor-in-chief of the journal Analytical Chemistry, set off a virtual firestorm in the science blogosphere with an editorial suggesting that science blogging threatens the integrity of scientific communication. While many of Murray’s concerns about science blogging appear misplaced, the questions his editorial raises about where science is being reported and discussed are critical ones. Are peer-reviewed journal articles the only source that research chemists should consult or is there a role for contemporaneous and less formally vetted, even vitriolic, commentary?

Francl will discuss some of the rhetorical strategies employed in the exchanges in chemistry journals from the late 19th century, such as Sir William Crooke’s Chemical News, and in 21st century blogs, such as In the Pipeline. Do these exchanges fold back into the primary research literature, now and in the 19th century, or are they dead-ends? Are trolls - deliberately provocative commenters - missing from print conversational threads or do they play a key role in the secondary chemical literature?

Michelle M. Francl is professor of chemistry and co-director of the Emily Balch Seminar program at Bryn Mawr College. She is a quantum chemist who has published in areas ranging from the development of methods for computational chemistry to the structures of topologically intriguing molecules. She is also a writer whose essays on science, culture and policy have appeared in Nature Chemistry and in several collections. Her blog can be found at cultureofchemistry.fieldofscience.com. She was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2009.