Welcome to the Science Communication Module

In this section, we will emphasize the importance of communicating your research and how you can reach a larger audience (including non-scientists). We will also cover various formats of science communication that you will likely prepare, hear, read, or write during your career in STEM.

Why is science communication important?

You likely pursued science because you like to solve questions no one has solved before and find explanations for why the natural world functions the way it does. Our work as scientists influences policy in many key areas that affect our planet and way of life, such as medical care, climate change, solar and planetary systems, nutrition, and more. You have a responsibility as a scientist to make sure people understand your work. Your findings are meaningless if you cannot share them with groups who can act on that information.

Scientists' day-to-day work revolves around the small—but very important—details of the main scientific questions we are trying to answer. You are systematically trying to solve a problem by performing experiments or building models that require gaining a lot of specialized expertise and troubleshooting very particular issues. This makes it challenging to keep the "big idea" in mind. We often interact with people in the same field as us, people who understand our project and the scientific jargon we use. So when it comes to communicating our research to people outside our fields, we find it challenging to explain things to an audience with limited scientific knowledge. For this reason, our approach to science communication must differ from our approach to everyday experiments and modeling.

The Big Picture: Setting up the scene to engage your audience

To successfully communicate science, we need to focus on the Big Picture, in other words, the main motivation that binds your work together and contextualizes it within existing work.

Exercise 1: Defining Your Big Picture

Take a few minutes to think about your research. Break down your project into the following 3 points. Write 2–3 sentences or bullet points for each.

  1. What problem are you trying to solve?
    • This contextualizes your research. What work has been done in the past? What is still missing?
  2. Why is it so important to solve this problem?
    • What could society gain if we had a solution to this problem?
  3. How do you propose to solve this problem?
    • What are your methods or approaches for solving this problem?
    • Note that this section of your Big Picture tends to get complicated depending on the level of detail with which you describe your experimental research. Your job as a science communicator is to explain this material in an accessible way for your specific audience. If this feels overwhelming right now, focus on points 1 and 2 above and revisit this after you've read more about jargon.

The Importance of Recognizing (& Limiting) Scientific Jargon

Scientific jargon is the specialized vocabulary you use to talk about your research. Depending on the expertise level of your audience, you should adjust the amount of jargon used in presentations. In cases when the jargon cannot be replaced with other words, one should take the time to define it for the audience.

Exercise 2: Rephrase your Jargon

Look back at the content you wrote for the first exercise. Identify any jargon you used and assess whether your audience would be familiar with those concepts. If not, replace your jargon or define it.

Science Communication Formats

In general, science communication can be oral or written. As a scientist, you will be attending different conferences or meetings where you will be asked to talk about your project. Usually, an oral presentation is supplemented with visual aids, whether that be a PowerPoint presentation, a poster, or another. Written communication of your research includes published research papers or project proposals/research grants. We will cover these formats in greater detail below. It’s important to mention that these are the most common methods for scientific communication, but by no means are they the only ones. A lot of science is being communicated in new ways, such as podcasts, YouTube videos, or TikTok clips. Every medium has different considerations and requires unique approaches that leverage the format and connects with its anticipated audience.

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Powerpoint Presentations

Crafting your Content

Design is an important element. A well-constructed presentation can be creative and engaging. It can be an opportunity to show some personality. It is important to keep in mind that design should work with the content, not against it. In other words, use design to help tell your story, not to distract from it.Ìý

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Keep the audience in mind. Be intentional about your choices including font (size, color, etc), background design/color, size of images/figures, and amount of text on the slide.ÌýÌý

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Title Page

  • List the title of your presentation in large font

    • This title should be descriptive of your research, concise, and east to understand. Workshopping a title is hard work; it is likely you will re-write it many times as you search for the right combination of words.

  • Name of the conference of meeting and date of your presentation

  • Your Name

  • Lab and institution where the research was conducted

Slide Titles

  • Make sure your titles are descriptive of the information on your slides

    • Instead of titling a results slide "Results," make the title a short summary of your main finding on that slide

Animations

  • Animations are especially helpful for explaining challenging concepts while keeping your audience engaged

  • Have parts of your slide appear and disappear instead of pointing at the slides. This approach is more stimulating and helps you out in the event that a slide is too high up for you to point at.

    • We don't recommend using laser pointers! They are extremely shaky and distracting. A well-designed presentation shouldn't necessitate a laser pointer.

Figures

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  • Figures are graphical representations of the data collected. This is the meat of your project and a likely place where the audience gets lost. In a science talk, you should take the time to walk the audience through your figure, explain the axes, type of data collected, pattern seen, etc.

In-Slide Citations

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  • If you use any published research in your talk, you need to cite the source. The citation should be on the same slide as the research (not in a final bibliography slide).Ìý

  • Format for citation : First Author's Last Name, Journal Name andÌý Year of publication

    • Ex: Kelly, Genome Research 2022

    • Typically in a small font on the right bottom corner of the slide.Ìý

Acknowledgments

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  • The last slide of your presentation. Here is where you acknowledge all the people who have helped on this researchÌý

    • Including: lab personnel, names and/or picture (typically PI and all lab members), collaborators, and funding sources.Ìý

Timing & Practice

When giving a talk, you will have to adhere to a given amount of time. It is important to practice your talk before-hand to make sure you are on/below the time limit. Audiences tend to get annoyed when a presentation is longer than expected, which can ruin a really great talk. Your tempo should not be rushed; if you are having to talk very fast to meet the given time, you probably have too much content and should remove or simplify some slides.Ìý

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When presenting, audiences will respond more to a good cadence and a clear and dynamic tone.Ìý

Posters

There are various ways to design a successful poster. Designing a poster can be challenging because it should tell the full story, Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusions all in a small space, so every section needs to be abbreviated.Ìý Poster sessions at conferences or meetings can be a couple hours long. Scientists will walk by many posters, so it is important to have a design that catches the eye.Ìý

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The following resources provide various tips for poster construction and design:Ìý

Title, Authors, & Institution

The title of your poster should be descriptive, concise, and easy to understand. In a poster session, your title is often the attention-grabbing component! Make sure it stands out, even if people are not familiar with your field.

Remember to include anyone who contributed to your research in a tangible way. This means you should include your primary research mentor, any collaborators, the professor who runs your lab (even if they didn't actively do experiments, they funded the lab that enabled your work!), and anyone else who did experiments or analzyed data. Don't include your research program mentor if they didn't actively work with you in the lab. Yes, these individuals are important, but you should include them in acknowledgements instead of giving them authorship over the research.

Lastly, make sure to include the institution at which you conducted your work, the program that hired you (if applicable), and the logos of any funding agencies that make the work possible.

Contact Information

Poster sessions are great networking opportunities! Make sure that your contact information is listed somewhere on your poster so people can reach out to you if you have a good conversation or if someone stops by your poster while you aren't around.

Citations & Acknowledgements

While it is important to include your citations on your poster, this can take up a lot of space! I recommend generating a scannable QR code for your poster that takes users to a Google Doc containing your works cited, your presentation abstract, contact information, and a short bio about you.

In your acknowledgements, list anyone who was integral in your research progress but didn't actively contribute to experiments or data analysis. This may include your family, friends, partner, or mentor. In some cases, you may also include anyone who shared some of their work with you, for example a code they had written or a bacterial strain you needed for your experiment.