Hill is a writer and associate editor for a university communications department. In this essay, she contends that Watson's unusual style of scientific reporting makes the work more appealing to the general public and does not deserve the severe criticism it received from the scientific community.

A set standard for science writing has long been held sacred within the scientific community, which compiles the material, writes it, reads it, and, of course, understands it. It is a standard that calls for straightforward, objective accounting with few subjective observations and no emotional outbursts or anecdotal asides. No one would argue that Watson is not a member of this community and, yet, his reporting of the discovery of DNA's structure breaks every rule in the standard of scientific writing. As predicted, the author fielded much criticism for The Double Helix after its publication, primarily from his own colleagues and...