By: Seham Elsherif
When scientists and researchers communicate, they use a highly technical language; each field has its specialized terminologies and theories. If a researcher in a certain speciality needed to understand what a colleague in another field is saying, they need to use simple language and clarify various terms and theories. In case the researcher addresses a non-specialized audience, they need a special talent and skill to deliver this information. In this article, we tackle the basic principles of science communication.
What is science communication?
Science communication aims to educate and inform the public about scientific topics. Traditionally, science communication was done through science magazines, books, conferences, and traditional media. However, in the age of technological development, we have documentaries, podcasts, webinars, e-newsletters, social media, as well as virtual and public lectures (such as TED Talks).
If we talk about the importance of science communication, we find that its most important goals are to educate and arouse people's curiosity about scientific topics, and to encourage the new generation to play a role in developing science and influencing their societies. One of the goals of science communication is to inform the public and raise their awareness about new research results, to enable them to form their opinions on issues that require the use of scientific solutions.
The significance of science communication has several forms: communicating with and informing press and media platforms of the latest developments in scientific research, communicating with decision makers to offer scientific solutions to society’s problems, or persuading investors to fund research projects to develop and produce new products.
However, science communicators face challenges when communicating abstract and sensitive topics. Here, the question is: How can science communicators create engaging and entertaining content for the audience?
Set Your Goals
First, science communicators must define the goals for their science communication; the goal will vary depending on the topic and target audience. It may be raising awareness, building trust, communication, persuasion, encouraging the study of science, or inspiring young scientists. The audience may include the general public, students, journalists, decision makers, or investors.
Know Your Audience
There is no general public in science communication; it is much more effective to focus on specific audiences, instead. The audience is defined by elements such as: age, education, interests, experiences, and needs. Based on the audience, the used language, multimedia, and examples vary; you can have different presentations of the same topic for different audiences. For example, when addressing students, we use completely different examples, similes, and metaphors from those used with decision makers.
Each category has different expectations; the general public expects you to know the results that affect their lives and society. The media, on the other hand, expects you to know the importance of the results of your research, and how they are different from others' accomplishments. As for the investors, they expect you to present numbers and statistics that persuade them of the potential profits from the investment.
You must consider social, religious, cultural, cognitive, and political considerations. The general public is a non-specialized audience, whose ages, interests, opinions, and experiences vary. Dealing with them entails respecting their previous knowledge and using appropriate examples and similes. To ensure that your audience stays motivated, you need to consider that their knowledge of the topic is limited, and prioritize the topics they are interested in over others.
Personalize Your Message
After identifying your target audience, you must determine and customize the message to be delivered to them. Knowing how the public thinks about a topic, helps answer their questions. The message must be clear and concise. We must keep in mind that the goal is not to market the idea presented, but to build trust, attract, and encourage the public to participate in discussing scientific topics.
A science communicator should always put themselves in the audience's place and prepare the scientific material based on their knowledge and questions. For example, they ask themself: What does the audience know about this topic? Why is this topic important to them? What are the learning outcomes? What is the future of this topic?
The audience may be skeptical; the most appropriate way to deal with this is to answer all the audience's questions and remove all their doubts. It is also important to start with the main idea and and then the sub-ideas.
In public lectures and forums, it is preferable for a science communicator to prepare answers to questions regarding effects, results, and probabilities in advance, to enrich the discussion with the audience. You must prepare well before the lecture, start with an introduction, and pay attention to explaining the mechanism of action, not just the results.
As for communicating with decision makers, whether in meetings or public discussions, you should know the problems they are interested in and offer realistic solutions, in addition to using the appropriate language of dialogue and summarizing the most important points.
Choose Your Media
In the current era, media and means of communicating with the public have varied; it may be a written article, produced film, webinar, program, etc.
If your media means is writing articles for magazines or specialized websites, or writing books, you must not use difficult terms and repetitive words; you should also avoid using puns and wordplay. If you are presenting the scientific content through a program, documentary, or podcast, you must use language that is appropriate for all audiences and that they can understand and relate to.
Evaluate Your Performance
Evaluating performance is essential if you wish to continue to thrive in science communication. It is based on continuous development and improvement. To improve performance, we must use evaluation and measurement tools; what is not measured cannot be improved. You can measure your success in science communication by tracking the number of shares, views, and comments on your blog, conducting surveys, or tracking listeners’ expressions and responses. All of this can help you evaluate your performance and develop.
Useful Tips
- Use Storytelling Techniques
Storytelling is a powerful and successful technique of attracting the audience. When you turn a complex scientific topic into a story, it becomes simple and penetrates minds quickly, attracting the audience to your world. Make the story simple and clear. Talk about success stories, challenges, and opportunities within the framework of describing a scientific achievement.
Make your scientific topic an exciting story that has a clear beginning, middle, and end, with characters, a conflict, and a resolution; adding a sense of humor would be delightful. This technique can be used when presenting a story about a major discovery, the arrival of an invention into the light, or explaining the impact of a phenomenon on the society. Remember, using stories does not mean falsifying facts.
Jargon is words used by specialists and are difficult for others to understand. When a specialist uses jargon with outsiders, it becomes meaningless, and may even represent a barrier to an effective communication. You should, thus, avoid using jargon, and use acceptable alternatives or simple sentences to approximate the meaning. At the same time, do not oversimplify to a shallow and superficial level.
To ensure that your presentation or talk is jargon-free, ask yourself the following questions, according to the American Geophysical Union (a non-profit scientific association): Do these sentences have different meanings in our normal conversations? Do we use them when discussing research only? Do your friends and family members know what they mean? Are they difficult to understand? Is it possible to use acceptable and clear alternatives?
Here is an example of an attempt to approximate the meaning of jargon made by a researcher presenting quantum computing to her audience. She started by asking: what is the benefit of a computer? Then she asked: what if a computer—or even a supercomputer—could not solve a complex problem? Here, the audience understood her point without jargon.
The use of visual aids, multimedia, and artistic designs (such as graphs, infographics, illustrations, photos, and maps) adds levity and joy, attracts and engages the audience. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Use colors wisely, know the principles of choosing them, and utilize high-quality images provided with necessary data. When you use a slide show, do not distract the audience with too much text or images.
Encourage interaction; ask your audience to act for something related to the topic. Your request could be to follow a certain behavior, interact, or think. For example, after explaining that turtles are dying on the highway, and their mortality is increasing, ask the audience to pay attention when driving cars near animal habitats. The request must be relevant to the audience and executable. The previous example cannot be applied in a country that does not have turtles!
Learn from your colleagues, professors, experts, or celebrities in science communication, to acquire new experiences and see different paths. Learn also from your mistakes and audience comments. Participate in forums and groups concerned with science communication, or specialized workshops and courses.
If your audience is students, get them involved because their enthusiasm is greater than any other group. When students participate in discussion or dialogue, ask questions, and conduct experiments, they provide an engaging narrative.
You must show your enthusiasm and passion for the topic you present. Enthusiasm is contagious and automatically transfers to the audience. Showing enthusiasm can be through body language, tone of voice, expressive emotions and gestures, or using questions and exclamations, among others.
You will not acquire presentation and simplifying information skills overnight; you need to keep practicing, make evaluations, and know the audience opinions. All of this will cultivate these skills. If you practice science communication by writing, you should practice writing a lot and read several articles, until you develop your own style.
Start with the important result and then go into details. If you are a researcher, start with what you are working on and what you have discovered, then talk about its importance; after that, provide some information and details that clarify the topic. This is called the inverted pyramid in the press.
Divide your talk into three main points that are supported by more information.
- Do not talk about results only.
Pay attention to the whole story. Talk about how an invention arrived into the light or how scientists made this discovery. It can spark the curiosity of non-specialists and distinguish science from pseudoscience.
In conclusion, we find that science communication is essential for several reasons; most importantly, it promotes both raising awareness and understanding of science. Scientists, researchers, and science experts must have a mastery of this art, to contribute to the development of nations.
References