People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that… - William Zinsser

The value of a baccalaureate education for nurses today,” said Professor Miller, “is that it helps them to become leaders and decision-makers and advocates. The caring role is critical, and often nurses are the only people in a community who are in a position to see what’s happening to a family when something goes wrong — for instance, when the child of two working parents gets sick — and to find a solution.

That’s why I liked the two trends that Professor Potts mentioned: educating future scientists to be more attuned to the impact of their work, and educating the rest of us to be more scientifically literate. It does us no good to just feel a growing sense of jeopardy over what the scientists are “up to.” As citizens we’re responsible for what we know and what we don’t know.

Most nonfiction writers have a definitiveness complex. They feel that they are under some obligation — to the subject, to their honor, to the gods of writing — to make their article the last word. It’s a commendable impulse, but there is no last word.