Art of Science Communication - Week 1

This week is Week 1 of this session (Winter 2024) of ASBMB's Art of Science Communication (ASC) course. I have been a volunteer facilitator for this course since 2018 and it is one of the things that bring me the most joy in my professional life. So, I've decided to share my insights as we move along with the course... and maybe convince you to take the course next time it is offered ;).

I have a small cohort of just 3 students this time around (which is great because it will give me and my facilitator a lot of time to work with each student) and I just met them on Monday. I got extra lucky with this group. They are all very communicative, they clearly have a passion for science communication, and they are ready and eager to learn.

What do you want to talk about?

This is the first question of the course, and while most students have an idea of what they want their topic to be, it can be hard to nail down to something that can be adequately covered in 5 minutes. So, we usually spend a considerable amount of time in Week 1 talking about how to narrow down a topic. A lot of times students leave the session with some ideas, but needing to think about it more.

Narrowing down a topic is important because of the constraints of the course. The course has 8 weeks and at the end, students record a 5 minute presentation on their topic of choice. Each week we focus on a different part of the presentation as we build it. And it is hard to build a presentation if you haven't figured out a topic.

I find that this mimics real life. Many times, as a medical writer, I have to decide on the story I am going to tell in project and what should and shouldn't be included. I only have so much space to tell my story and make my case, so I can't include everything. In CME, I often have to decide what information will I include in a given learning activity. Again, there is only so much information that can be covered in these activities, and learning how to select the content that will be most effective at meeting the learning objectives is key.

One specific way that I got extra lucky with this group is that every student had a clear story idea and a somewhat clear target audience (more about this in Week 3).

Diversity in science communication

A curious detail about my group this session is that everyone of us, including both facilitators, are not originally from the US and do not speak English as our first language. This is such a good representation of the diversity in science and academia in America, and a wonderful representation of the country as well. This point came up in our discussion, as one participant shared how it can be difficult for them to present in English.

This reminded me of something that I learned when I was taking a course on how to teach writing in the sciences that I found profoundly illuminating. In a paper about cultural thought patterns, Robert Kaplan describes how different cultures have unique logical systems that inform how stories should organized.

While the standard flow in English calls for linear storytelling, other cultures have different preferred organizations. For example, people like me, who speak a romance language, will often have deviations from the linear story where they add parallel elements that complement but don't advance the story. In English these "tangents" are considered superfluous, and so my teachers would often delete them. But in Portuguese, these "tangents" are the markers of good storytelling.

Understanding these cultural differences and how to spot them is key to my teaching of science writing to non-native English speakers. When I spot these differences, I usually sit with the student and show them what is happening and I explain why, in science, we adopt a more linear approach. Having this clarity has helped me immensely in making my writing more linear (and more clear).

On the other hand, I think there is so much beauty in this diversity. Knowing about these different cultural logic patterns has helped me see the world through many different lenses. It is something intangible and hard to explain.

The "so what" question

Another interesting discussion we had during our Monday session was about how to make our science stories matter to a general audience. Should we always relate the importance of research back to practical applications that non-scientists would appreciate?

I have thought about this question so many times. I have wrestled with it since my days as an undergraduate walking the halls of the University of Cape Town. I have debated this with many people, including many professors.

Yes, a key to good communication is figuring out why the other person will want to hear us out. That is why we often search for ways to make our research relatable to others. But I also think there is space in this world for another motivation for listening: wonder.

Wonder is what made me fall in love with science. Wonder is what made me spend hours looking at ants go about their lives, trying to figure them out. And wonder was behind my first real academic love: Developmental Biology. As Lewis Thomas said:

"For the real amazement, if you wish to be amazed, is this process. You start out as a single cell derived from the coupling of a sperm and an egg: this divides into two, then four, then eight, and so on, and at certain stage there emerges a single cell which has as all its progeny the human brain. The mere existence of such a cell should be one of the greatest astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell."

With this, I invite you to remember the wonderful wonder that we all are.

#ScienceCommunication #SciComm