October 8, 1999

A University Decides That Its Ph.D.'s Should Be Able to Talk to Average Joes

By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN

Texas offers for-credit courses to graduate students on communicating with the public

Analytical chemistry is Delony Langer's specialty. A Ph.D. student at the University of Texas here, she confidently runs experiments for her research project: "analyte transport studies in electrothermal vaporization-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry." But recently she has embarked on a new experiment that makes her anxious: She's learning to write -- so she can explain her research to the