SELLING YOUR SCIENCE

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SELLING YOUR SCIENCE

• Ricardo Azziz
• Lydia Aguilar-Bryan

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Selling Your Science

• Doing Science vs. Selling Science (Aguilar-Bryan)
• Selling your Science locally (Aguilar-Bryan)
• Selling Your Science at Meetings (Azziz)
• Abstracts
• Poster presentations
• Oral presentations
• Selling your Science to Grantors (Azziz)
• Publishing (Azziz)
• Post publication (Azziz)

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Selling Your Science Doing Science vs. Selling
Science

• If a tree falls and no one is there, does it
  make a sound?
• Build a story
• Science is a dialogue
• Forces clarity, simplicity cohesiveness of
  ideas
• Focuses effort and consequently relevance
  (creating a niche)
• Depends on the appropriate development of a
  plausible, logical, and testable Scientific
  Idea

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Selling Your Science Doing Science vs. Selling
Science

• Use a uniform outline for all presentations
• Title
• Background
• Significance
• Hypothesis
• Objective/Aim
• Experimental Design
• Statistical Analysis
• Data Interpretation
• Limitations Alternative Approaches

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Selling Your Science Doing Science vs. Selling
Science

• A picture is worth a thousand words
• Use graphical representations of the data
  whenever possible

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Selling Your Science Locally

• Oral presentations
• Attention span is short usually 5-20 min max
• So lecture should be about 20 min. long
• Not a venue to show how much I know
• Longer lectures should use "change-up" to
  restart the attention clock
• READ THE SLIDES (let the slides guide you)!
• FOCUS!
• Liberal use of handouts and visual aids

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Selling Your Science

• PowerPoint Your friend, your enemy
• Avoid complex backgrounds
• Avoid multiple colors which only have an
  aesthetic purpose (I.e. to make slides
  interesting)
• Avoid complex transitions
• Avoid presenting information that is not directly
  relevant or critical
• Avoid overly busy slides

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DHS LEVELS IN PCOS RELATIONSHIP TO THE SEVERITY
OF INSULIN RESISTANCE
Hyperandrogenic - normal insulin
(HA-NI) Hyperandrogenic - high insulin
(HA-HI) Controls
There was no difference in the response of
cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone, or
androstenedione to corticotropin-(1-24)
stimulation between normoinsulinemic and
hyperinsulinemic hyperandrogenic patients. As
defined, the hyperinsulinemic patients had higher
basal and peak insulin levels and areas under the
insulin response curve compared with the
normoinsulinemic patients or controls.
Smith et al., Am J Good Sci 1721251, 2006
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Selling Your Science at Meeting

• Choosing the right meeting
• Abstracts
• The most important exercise in learning to sell
  your science
• Should distill the absolute essence of your
  research
• Same outline as poster/manuscript, just very
  abbreviated
• Include graphs when possible
• Reviewers are human!

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Selling Your Science at Meeting

• Poster presentations
• Generally the most productive format for Junior
  Faculty
• Fosters interaction, critique input
• Begin by expanding the Abstract
• Use same outline as manuscripts, just abbreviated
• Use posters printed on a single sheet (avoid
  multiple pieces of paper)
• Have a copy of the poster available to hand out

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Selling Your Science at Meeting

• Oral presentations (10 min/5 min.)
• Focus, focus, focus
• One slide per minute (i.e. total of 10 slides)
• Title (1 slide)
• Background (1-2 slides)
• Hypothesis objective (1 slide)
• Materials and Methods (2-3 slides)
• Results (3-4 slides)
• Conclusions (1 slide)
• Future avenues of investigation (1 slide)
• Acknowledgements (1 slide) - optional
• READ THE SLIDES (let the slides guide you)!
• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

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Selling Your Science to Grantors

• Reviewers are professionals, but are human
• Reviewers may not (should not?) be experts in the
  specific area being studied. Need GUIDED STORY
• Reviewers are assigned 10-12 grants to review,
  often at the same time they are preparing their
  own grants for submission.
• In addition to the Science, clarity of
  presentation, focus of application, use of
  graphical aids, and ease of reading COUNT A LOT

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Selling Your Science to Grantors

• Reviewers will quickly determine which
  applications belong in the lower 50th percentile
  (i.e. bottom half or triaged)
• Not important/significant
• Not logical
• In need of extensive revision
• Overly ambitious
• Unfocused
• Not supported by preliminary data
• In need of preliminary data
• The remaining are then reviewed more carefully
  and scored

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• Chapters/reviews
• Serve to focus and establish story, review
  history, and summarize research direction,
  pitfalls, and limitations
• Limit number, especially early in career
• Peer-reviewed
• Selecting a Journal
• How Editorial Boards work
• Reviewers are human

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• Constructing a manuscript
• Expand Posters
• Use uniform outline
• Read the Instructions to author CAREFULLY
• Maintain your study focus, even if results are
  negative (THEY WILL BE ? 80 OF THE TIME!)
• FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!
• Avoid excessive post-hoc analysis
• Minimize speculation
• When you think it is ready to send out, put away
  for a week, and then reread.

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• The Introduction
• 2-3 paragraphs
• Introduction to topic (not review!)
• Statement of hypothesis
• Outline of objective/specific aim

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• The Materials and Methods
• Be very specific
• Should facilitate replication
• Do not include any data, unless preliminary data
  relevant to methods only.
• Include statistical analysis

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• The Results
• Only the facts
• Use graphical representation when possible,
  however..
• Do not present duplicate data
• Do not present excessive peripheral analyses,
  such as unfocused correlations

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Selling Your Science Publishing

• The Discussion
• Paragraph 1
• Restate hypothesis, summarize relevant results of
  study, note significance
• Paragraph 2-3
• Compare results to that of other studies
• Review potential mechanisms
• Paragraph 4
• Review limitations of study
• Paragraph 5
• Restate hypothesis, note results significance,
  and outline future avenues of investigation.

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Selling Your Science Post-Publication

• Maintain research focus, but.
• Keep abreast of other potentially relevant data
  studies