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When
students ask for my advice or tips for success, I provide a long list of
technical skills and certifications that will help them stand out in the crowd
of young scientists – scientific diving, electrofishing, safe boating, engine
repair, OSHA, R, Illustrator, JAGS, Python, microscopy, and sensor calibration.
“These things will look great on your C.V.” I tell them. But no matter your specialty,
we all will need superb communication skills, a network, and relationships to
make sure you realize your dream. Here I
highlight some favorite ideas for communicating science and nurturing a
network. When Voltaire penned “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” he may have
been speaking to why we are inhibited from writing for a public audience. Building communication skills requires many attempts
to communicate and frequent reactions, such as “What do you mean?”
In
the Department of Fish and Wildlife Communication, we have long required graduate
students to translate their thesis findings to a form for a non-scientific audience.
My first graduate students shared aspects of their studies in Virginia Wildlife (Leonard
and Orth 1985; Graham and Orth 1986; Austen and Orth 1988).
Scientists
in fisheries management and conservation sciences must be capable of
communicating with non-scientists. Our poor communications training is a long-standing
issue and affects many professions. Physician
and author, Michael Crichton, authored an article in 1975 entitled “Medical
Obfuscation: Structure and Function” in The
New England Journal of Medicine. In
this article he lamented the impenetrable writing skills of most physicians.
Start
with your message, develop convincing prose, and adapt it to your specific audience. Many resources are available to assist you. Begin with the Compass website. The message box is a simple tool to help you distill
your message. Like others, I tend to write
too many details when communicating with a non-scientific audience. If I am empathetic to their needs, I must make
meaning in the fewest and simplest words possible.
Randy
Olson, author of Houston We Have a
Narrative, provided a template for creating engaging stories. The acronym, ABT, reminds one that "AND" sets
up the background, "BUT" identifies the problem and conflict, and "THEREFORE" describes
one solution to the conflict. Listen to sciencecommunicator, Tullio Rossi, explain how to turn your science into a captivating
story.
 |
| Comic designed to contrast the typical science presentation with a more engaging story that uses the And, But, Therefore template. |
Consider
these simple steps for making your message more shareworthy (from Moore and
Orth 2018).
· Trust your story
and adapt the ABT framework.
· Avoid getting
sidetracked by unnecessary details. Place difficult to understand concepts in
terms the audience understands with analogies.
· Relay the human
element of the story that includes your emotions and the sensory details that
can help the reader engage.
· Be
self-deprecating and find the humor in your mistakes. Your audience is more
likely to see you as relatable and trustworthy, rather than depressing and
whiny.
· Use a variety of
media. Alternatives to journal impact factors for gauging research influence now account for the power of social media to communicate science with
services, such as Plum Analytics and Altmetrics.
· Bolster your
stories with photos, music, video, or art. Turn it into a children’s picture
book.
· Take advantage of
free or inexpensive platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
blogging platforms, and YouTube.
 |
| Contrasting presentations for scientific and public audiences. |
At
a recent plenary talk at the AFS meeting
in Atlantic City, Dr. Christine O’Connell (Alan Alda Center, Stony Brook
University) emphasize three messages for making your voice matter and making
your science count.
Takeaway 1. SHIFT
YOUR FOCUS: It’s not about you, the listener must catch the message. Pay
attention to your audience
Takeaway 2. FOSTER
EMPATHY: We must deal with the curse of knowledge and avoid jargon.
Takeaway 3. TELL A
STORY: Stress the meaning and not the
details in a way that makes the listener care.
There are many stories we need to tell and our pre-occupation with statistical
significance often stifles our creative storytelling. Ditching the jargon is a most common recommendation from experienced science communicators (Helmuth 2012; AGU 2018; Merkle
2018; Quinlan 2018).
 |
You should share the lessons learned from the non-significant
findings of your investigations (adapted from Moore and Orth 2018).
|
It’s never too
early to begin teaching basics of communication, whether in elementary middle
or high school or college. It takes
practice and instructors should dispense with multiple choice exams and require
authentic forms of communication. Students
needs guided practice with video, photography, sound, text and social media for
messaging across multiple platforms. I
have converted some essays in exams to infographics or digital
video essays. Adolescents today spend more time composing unique
genre restricted to 280 characters on Twitter via their mobile phones (2017). My students write blog posts in addition to
scientific articles, for example, check out Chesapeakecatfish, ClinchChronicles, VT Ichthyology, and The Troutlook. Saunders et al. (2017) suggest that blogging can have
broad benefits in developing professional networks, collaborations, and sharing
the essential scientific papers.
Storytelling is
sometimes great for conveying your less successful moments as a scientist. Lessons learned from mistakes are popular
ways to engage non-scientists in the nitty-gritty aspects of our work. Consider, for example, the success of Jim
Jourdane’s Fieldwork Fail: The Messy Side
of Science! So write more, and when you do make your writing more engaging.
References
American
Geophysical Union (AGU). 2018. Jargon and how to avoid it. Accessed November 16, 2018 from https://sharingscience.agu.org/jargon-and-how-to-avoid-it/
Austen, D. J., and
D. J. Orth. 1988. Sampling of waters with electricity. Virginia Wildlife 49(4):24-27.
Crichton, M. 1975. Medication obfuscation: structure and function. The New
England Journal of Medicine 293:1257-1259.
Accessed November 16, 2018 from http://www.bumc.bu.edu/facdev-medicine/files/2012/03/Crichton_M_nejm1975_293_1257_medical-obfuscation_structure-function.pdf
Graham, R. J., and
D. J. Orth. 1986. Living in the danger zone. How do
smallmouth bass survive? Virginia Wildlife
47(4):22-25.
Helmuth, L. 2012. Pitching Errors: How Not to Pitch. The Open
Notebook. Accessed November 16, 2018
from https://www.theopennotebook.com/2012/01/04/how-not-to-pitch/
Leonard, P. M.,
and D. J. Orth. 1985. Are your streams healthy? Ask the
fish! Virginia Wildlife 46(4):14-17.
Quinlan, C. 2018.
Ditch the Jargon, Change the World? Science 37 Trial Mix website. Accessed November 16, 2018 from https://www.science37.com/blog/improving-science-communication-listening-empathy-storytelling/
Merkle, B. G. 2018
Tips for Communicating Your Science with the Press: Approaching
Journalists. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 99(4):e01430. https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1430
Saunders, M.E., M.
A. Duffy, S. B. Heard, M. Kosmala, S. R. Leather, T. P. McGlynn, J. Ollerton, A. L. Parachnowitsch. 2017.
Bringing ecology blogging into the scientific fold: measuring reach and impact
of science community blogs. Royal Society
Open Science 4: 170957. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170957
Warner, J. 2017. Adolescents’
New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones. Peter Lang International
Academic Publishers. New York. 198 pp.
