There are a lot of tips and techniques for communicating science outside of..um…science. One of my favourites is an oldie but a goody.
The inverted pyramid.
The pyramid approach
Science is all about building a body of evidence - and, indeed, building on an existing body of evidence. With just a few notable exceptions, scientific papers are all presented in the same format:
👋 We start off with the introduction, where we jibber-jabber about the background and the context of the research we’re presenting. What do we know? What questions will we answer? and so forth.
🔬 Then we move into the methods. What did we do precisely (or as precisely as we can with limited word space)? What data, how did we collect it, what tests did we perform, what software or hardware did we use, etc.
😲 Next, we get to the results - what we found, summaries of the data, and other juicy insights.
🤔 Finally, we cap off with a bit of reflection - often a quick summary of the key results, chitchat about caveats, and, crucially, talk about the key messages - the so what of the research
The inverted pyramid approach
Take a quick peek at your favourite news website or print publication that covers research, and check out one of the stories covering a piece of research. Here’s one if you want a quick option When you drink bottled water, you're drinking lots and lots of nanoplastics | CBC News. What do you see first?
Lots of background? Nope
A dive into the methods? Nope
A summary of the results? Nope
What we get is the key message - the so what from the research. The background, the methods, the supporting details…that all comes after.
By inverting the pyramid - putting the so-what front and centre, you’re more likely to grab someone’s attention.
The inverted pyramid by Rolf Hut et al from their 2016 paper “Geoscience on television: a review of science communication literature in the context of geosciences" https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-2507-2016 (CC BY 3.0 DEED)
Unless you’re reaching out to other scientists, you might also want to avoid going too much into the methods and specifics of the results. In the article I linked, they gave a super-short description, just enough for the curious reader.
Oh, and those p-values and confidence intervals? Yep, chat about those, and you risk losing your audience. That’s not to say you shouldn’t talk about things like uncertainty. It just needs to be woven gently into your story.
Thinking about the inverted pyramid isn’t just important if you’re writing about your research for a more general audience. It can also be useful for preparing to talk to a journalist or even talking to your friends and family!