Jamie Zvirzdin

@jamiezvirzdin.com

1479 Followers 668 Following

Research: Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays with #machinelearning at #TelescopeArray. Past: Science editor and #ScienceWriting faculty at Johns Hopkins. Essays: The Atlantic, Orion, Aeon, etc. Book: #SubatomicWriting (JHU Press). I worship MacGyver and Picard.

Allotsego.com, Letter from Ron Bishop, Kudos for Citizen Science Column. I applaud you all at Iron String press for continuing your column series Citizen Science. I have greatly appreciated the insights of Jamie Zvirzdin these last 3 years, and now look forward to more from Roberta McLain and the other two writers taking up the baton for the next months and years.
Slide from presentation by Jamie Zvirzdin, shows a white lightbulb on black background. Our Own Neural Networks Your brain is the ultimate multipurpose problem-solving machine: -adaptable, -fast (~1 exaFLOP*), -robust, -creative, and -energy-efficient (20 watts vs. 20 megawatts). Have a little faith in it when it comes to writing! *1 exaFLOP = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). Links to NIST, PCMag, DOE, and Wikipedia
Image of the urbs quadrata, a circle with a square cross in it.
Satellite image of fire in Sevier County, Utah.
Screenshot of a Meta popup forcing user to pay money to keep data private or give permission for Meta to use data.
Blue-merle Australian shepherd covered with mud sitting on a hiking trail.
Man with tabby cat on his lap
Picture of computer monitor with cosmic ray detection software, eyeglasses and the book Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos by Steven H. Strogatz in front of the computer keyboard, Jamie's cat's head in foreground.
Jamie and Andrew at a lake in Ireland.
Interview with Trisha Steele describing where her literary piece originated, The graduate science writing class Subatomic Writing taught by Jamie Zvirzdin
Python plot of a wormhole for Relativity course.
Beginnings of braided karate belts. Packing tape and heavy objects help.
The first slide of a interdisciplinary presentation given by Jamie Zvirzdin at the University of Delaware on January 27, 2025. At the top it says Prompt: create a Google slides background image for my presentation, "Psst . . . your AI is showing." Below, against the flashy futuristic image of a circuitboard, is the attempt to replicate the title of the presentation, which uses multiple dots for the ellipses and "AI.I."instead of "AI." In a normal text box that follows is the subtitle of the presentation, "How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers." In the corner are logos from The Telescope Array Project and the University of Utah. The slide encapsulates the gist of the presentation, which is that AI is flashy and visually appealing but still cannot write well and comes off, ultimately, as unprofessional, not to mention riddled with ethical challenges.
Frozen landscape of Greenland taken from an airplane.
Group of great physicists.
Cross-eyed tabby cat yawning.
Picture of Stonehenge with a raven atop a lintel.
A woman in a cowboy hat, T-shirt, and jeans stands next to a fenced solar panel and antenna equipment in the Utah desert. Desert scrub surrounds them and clouds gather in the background.
A man wearing a hat talks on a cell phone next to a white vehicle parked out in the Utah desert.
University of Delaware Arts & Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy Jamie Zvirzdin University of Utah, Johns Hopkins University Mini-Workshop Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers Monday. January 27, 2025 1:00 – 4:30 p.m. In-person: Gore Hall Register Here! (link on real PDF via event site) Seats limited. Want to publish your science article, submit your grant proposal, or receive top marks on a term paper? Think AI can easily write it for you? You might want to think again. Come hear a seasoned science editor and award-winning Science Writing professor at Johns Hopkins University give examples of how painfully obvious the AI voice is to editors, grant-givers, and professors. Jamie Zvirzdin, who now builds neural networks to analyze cosmic-ray data for the Telescope Array Project, will show you how to identify your writing voice and leverage AI to produce outstanding scientific work that still retains your personal linguistic stamp. This three-hour event (with breaks) will cover the main concepts of Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). See reviews for Subatomic Writing from NPR, NASA, MIT, and more at http://www.subatomicwriting.com. Book signing to follow event.
Cat asleep on lap in a small personal library.
Isaac Newton with big hair and a green face, a quote above saying, "I think I'll try defining gravity."
Best Sellers Rank: #436,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #57 in Technical Writing Reference (Books) #82 in Academic & Scholarly Writing #127 in Science for Kids Customer Reviews: 4.7, 9 ratings
Screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation. ChatGPT answers the user question "Is Subatomic Writing a good book?" Is Subatomic Writing a good book? ChatGPT said: "Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter" by Jamie Zvirzdin has received positive feedback from both readers and experts. On Goodreads, it holds an average rating of 4.4 out of 5, indicating strong reader satisfaction. GOODREADS Notable endorsements include: Mary Roach, author of "Fuzz" and "Stiff," describes the book as "a quirky, quarky, marvelously helpful, relentlessly readable guide to effective science communication." AMAZON Christopher Joyce, Science Desk Correspondent at NPR, praises it for linking "principles of physics with those of grammar and linguistics," serving as "a tasty guide to scientific thinking and writing." AMAZON Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer and director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, calls it "smart, effective, and a whole lot of fun." AMAZON These endorsements suggest that "Subatomic Writing" is a valuable resource for those interested in enhancing their science communication skills.
Vial of medicine with a kissy face on it.
Desert sunset
Security camera image with red taillights in the distance
Small gray mouse wrapped in a mouse pad
Jamie Zvirzdin has written a quirky, quarky, marvelously helpful, relentlessly readable guide to effective science communication. Like particle physics, grammar and good writing are, at their core, a system of rules and relationships. Master these and the universe is yours! ―Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff
Subatomic Writing out of stock at Bookshop.org
DCSWA Professional Development Boot amp with Jamie Zvirzdin. (Virtual) January 21-28, 2024. Whether you're just starting out or need a jump-start to keep going, this eight-day informative boost, led by award-winning Johns Hopkins instructor Jamie Zvirzdin, will take you to the next level of professional writing, networking, and publishing. The virtual course will run from Sunday, Januar 21st - Sundaty, January 28th, but will only meet on the first and last day. Register at DCSWA.org. Image of woman with glasses below the textbook Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter.