Core Principles of Science Communication

Here are a few core concepts that are key for effective science communication.

Relevance

People want to know why your work is relevant to them. Sharing that first, and coming back to it again later, will help your audience remember your bottom line.

Effective science communication is less about expounding on all the exciting details that you might want to convey, and more about knowing your audience and providing them with what they need or want to know from you.

Distill

People want to know why your work is relevant to them. Sharing that first, and coming back to it again later, will help your audience remember your bottom line.

Your goal as you fill out your Message Box is to identify the information that is critical to your audience–what really matters to them—and share that.

Your audience—whether a journalist, a policymaker, a room of colleagues at a professional meeting, or a class of second-graders—doesn’t have deep knowledge of your subject matter. But that doesn’t mean you should explain everything you know in a fire hose of information. In fact, cognitive research tells us that the human brain can only absorb three to five pieces of information at a time! So prioritize what you share, based on what your audience needs to know.

Audience

People interpret information through the lens of their own values and cultural identities, and will reject information that they feel is threatening to those values.

Many scientists believe that if they simply share what they know with nonscientists, they’ll convince them to change their views, including on issues such as climate change, vaccination, or other topics.

But research in the field of science communication demonstrates that simply sharing more scientific information doesn’t change minds, attitudes, or behaviors.

Instead of simply dispensing knowledge, try to understand the people you are talking to by asking questions and learning more about what is important to them. This also helps you to know which aspects of your research are most relevant to them, and what you should prioritize as you’re sharing your work.

Jargon

As you are preparing and practicing sharing your research, be wary of jargon creeping into your messages.

Jargon is precise, but to those outside of your discipline, it might as well be a foreign language. Jargon gets in the way and excludes people from your meaning.

Even if you try to define key terms throughout your discussion, you’ll quickly exceed the three to five pieces of information your audience can readily grasp at a time.

Then, every time you repeat the terms, your audience will be several steps behind you, trying to translate unfamiliar words, rather than focused on the message you want to convey.

A good way to test for jargon is to practice with someone who is unfamiliar with your field—if they don’t understand what you’re saying, it’s time to revise so that they do!