How can you use storytelling to make your algorithm research engaging?

1 Why storytelling matters

Storytelling is not just a form of entertainment or a way to pass time. It is also a powerful tool for learning, teaching, and persuading. Stories can help you convey complex ideas, illustrate examples, show connections, and inspire action. They can also help you connect with your audience on a personal and emotional level, which can increase their interest, curiosity, and retention. Storytelling can make your algorithm research more memorable, relatable, and impactful.

2 How to find your story

Every algorithm research project has a story behind it, one that involves your motivation, problem statement, approach, results, challenges, insights, and implications. Asking yourself questions such as what is the main goal or question of your research and why is it important or interesting to you and others can help you identify the key elements and events of your story. You should also consider how you designed and implemented your algorithm, what you discovered or achieved with it, what difficulties or surprises you encountered along the way, and what the implications or applications of your algorithm are. These questions can guide you in finding the characters, conflicts, and resolutions of your story.

3 How to structure your story

Once you have found your story, you need to structure it in a way that makes sense and engages your audience. A common and effective way to do this is the three-act structure, which introduces your topic, main character, and main challenge or conflict in Act 1; details your algorithm development process, experiments, results, and obstacles or complications in Act 2; and summarizes your findings, insights, contributions, and recommendations or future directions in Act 3. This structure can help you craft a narrative arc that builds suspense, curiosity, and interest.

4 How to craft your story

Structuring your story is not enough; you need to craft it with techniques that can enhance its quality and appeal. To start, you can use a hook, such as a question, statistic, quote, fact, paradox, or personal anecdote. Additionally, transitions are words or phrases that link your sentences or paragraphs and show the logical flow of your story. Dialogue is another great technique to show the personality and emotions of your characters, as well as create a sense of realism. Lastly, imagery is the use of descriptive language that appeals to the senses and creates vivid pictures in the mind of your audience. All these techniques can help you make your story more concrete, colorful, and engaging.

5 How to deliver your story

The final step of storytelling is to deliver your story to your audience. Depending on your purpose and context, you may deliver your story in different formats and platforms, such as a written report or paper, a presentation or talk, or a blog post or article. When delivering your story, you need to practice, revise, and polish it before you present it. Additionally, you should get feedback from others and improve your story based on their suggestions and comments. Storytelling is not an instantaneous way to make algorithm research captivating and compelling; rather, it is a skill that requires creativity, clarity, and confidence. But if you apply the principles and techniques of storytelling to your algorithm research, you can make it more engaging and accessible to your audience, as well as more rewarding and enjoyable for yourself.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?