Blog/Press Release

An integral aspect of being a scientist is sharing our knowledge with the broader public. Scientific reports and presentations are one way, but not a very good way to communicate with the public. Even scientists and scholars have trouble understanding technical and sub-discipline specific information outside of their specialty. One great way to share your results is through a blog or news release. These forms of communication take your findings or information and make it understandable to an educated but non-expert person. Below are reasons why scientists should blog and how to do it best.

Science communication is less about translating scientific findings and more about sparking curiosity. Almost every child at some point loves science, but many (most?) adults seem to have little care for science where did the passion go? Being a civic-minded scientist means being a part of your community and working to demonstrate the power that scientific research has in its effort to ask and answer questions. Too often scientists find themselves defending themselves from accusations of waste and irrelevance. When those scientists then go to talk to people about the importance of their work, almost everyone can agree that what they do matters. Many others have argued for the general importance of communicating science and the overall benefit that engaged scientists and informed citizens provide (here, here, here, and here)

Benefits of Blogging

Next Scientist provided a number of reasons why running a science blog is good for graduate students

• Boosts your career

Having a blog allows you to showcase your work and get feedback

• Helps you keep learning

You have to stay on top of the literature and push yourself to learn new things. You can also work on your writing and communication.

Tips for Science Writing

The American Scientist editors wrote a list of tips for science writing. I'll pull out just the tips and let you follow the link for more information.

• Your first sentence must be indelible
• Know where you are taking the reader first and then tell them
• Each subsection and paragraph is a potential pathway into the text for a scanning reader
• Questions generally make poor topic sentences
• In the same vein, each subsection needs to transition the reader from one idea to the next
• Stop listing things—just stop
• Use the first person
• If you want people to understand that a problem addressed by your research affects real people, you need to illustrate the problem by telling a story about real people
• Use your audience's lexicon
• When you feel you are done writing, don't just stop in your tracks once you’ve added the last bit of information you’d planned to include
• Avoid passive voice and clunky sentence structures
• Write for the readers

A few years ago I tweeted to a blogger that I follow what their best practices were for blogging and you can find that here (below are just the headlines, follow the link for more)

• Think like a scientist but write like a blogger
• Don't dumb down
• …start by blogging about your own sub-speciality
• Use (borrow) images
• Be openly opinionated
• Be new

A few years ago The Guardian newspaper had a great series on the Secrets of Good Science Writing

• How to pitch articles to editors
• How to report form a science conference
• How to avoid common mistakes in science writing
• How to create a successful science blog
• How to write a science feature
• Talk to me! Top tips for conducting interviews with scientists
• How to write a science news story based on a research paper
• Be open about what you think
• A good story conveys wonderment

References

Peironcely, J. (2012). 9 reasons why running a science bolog is good for you. Retrieved from http://www.nextscientist.com/9-reasons-science-blog-good-for-you/

Burke, K.L. (2015). 12 tips for scientists writing for the general public. Retrieved from http://www.americanscientist.org/blog/pub/12-tips-for-scientists-writing-for-the-general-public

Neuroskeptic. (2013). How To Science Blog. Retrieved from http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/10/19/science-blog/

Halfmann, K. (2017). Nancy Baron: How and why to effectively communicate scientific research. Retrieved from http://mailchi.mp/gwis/gwis-lead-july-2017-scicomm-with-nancy-baron?e=%5BUNIQID

Safina, C. Why communicate science? Retrieved from https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201210/backpage.cfm

Feliú-Mójer, M. Effective communication, Better science. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/effective-communication-better-science/

Fischhoff, B. The science of science communication. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/110/Supplement_3/14033.full

Kahn, D. Scientists increasingly speak out. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-increasingly-speak-out/?WT.mc_id=SA_FB_POLE_NEWS