Communicating Science

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Communicating Science

• Some Practical Issues
• Amy R. Pearce, PhD

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My Sci Comm training

• National Centre for the
• Public Awareness of Science
• Certificate in science
• communication
• Audio, video, educational
• interactive CD-ROM
• Writer, producer, host for
• Fuzzy Logic
• Weekly one-hour science radio show
• Australian Science Festival

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Why you (and not the real journalist)
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• You know more about your work and your field in
  general
• You are no worse at communicating with the public
• An informed public leads to more financial
  support of science (tax )
• You have a professional responsibility to promote
  the public understanding of science

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Hazards of going public
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• May be seen as horn-tooting
• Not a peer-reviewed process
• Need to water-down your research
• Unpopularity of animal research with public
• These issues can be dealt with by a
  conscientious science writer.

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Relating to your audience

• What do you know about them?
• What do they know and
• care about?
• What should they know
• about you?
• What do you want them
• to know and care about?

What people find interesting is people.
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Some rules of thumb

• Keep it short and sweet
• words, sentences, and paragraphs
• Use numbers sparingly
• Use appropriate titles
• Rule for use of Dr. vs. PhD
• Include a simple photo or diagram

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Use of diagrams
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Of greater concernCredibilityboth your own and
of science

• Exercise caution with
• unpublished results
• Proof has various
• meanings
• Dont make mountains
• out of molehills

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Dealing with Jargon

• Reduce
• Revise
• Exclude
• Define

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Use short, common words
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Clearing the Fog

• Fog Index Readability Score
• Find mean words/sentence
• Determine of difficult words
• 3 syllables
• exclude proper names,
• some verb forms with ed or es, e.g. reacted easy
  compound words
• Add quantities (a) and (b)
• Multiply by 0.4

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Scientific American
Popular mags
Grade level
Calculating and reducing the Fog Index Scientific
American, 1978, January 34-43
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Planning a pieceAsk yourself. . .

• Why should anyone be interested in what I have to
  say?
• Why is my subject important?
• Why am I doing this now?
• Why should anyone trust me?

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Composing a story

• Introduction
• Start strong
• use a question, a startling statement, an
  anecdote, or a challenge
• Body
• Go from general to specific
• Conclusion
• Summarize
• Restate main theme
• How to find more information

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Final thoughts