Beginnings

I am a scientist, have been one for a long time, and probably planned on becoming one before I started school. I finished school with a PhD in biology and changed careers four or five times since then. A few years ago I stopped going on weekdays – or even on weekends – to teach in a classroom or lecture hall or work in a research laboratory or an office. Most people would think that meant “A few years ago I retired,” but that didn’t happen. For a few hours each week, I review and edit medical and scientific research manuscripts that were written by investigators who are not native English speakers. So I still work even though I don’t put on the expected work clothes and travel anywhere, walk through a door, smile, and say good morning to anyone who is not a family member. My workplace includes many virtual places on the Internet, and my office is a laptop computer or an iPad. “Good morning” may have to take time zones into account and is often typed out or spoken into a microphone. The trip to right here and now has been on a “long and winding road” but “the journey itself may more interesting than the destination.” (Yes, clichés do serve a purpose.) Maybe it was Brunelleschi or Masaccio who first put things in perspective, but it’s Douglas Adams, an author whom I greatly admire, who said something like “I may not have arrived where I expected, but I think that I ended up where I needed to be.”


This blog aims to increase the visibility of stylusedits.com and to help authors and investigators learn about me. I started it because “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Read on, but don’t expect the perspective to be total, the content to be completely objective, or all the opinions to be expert.