Edited by Simon Bakke We live through others and others live through us by way of storytelling. At some point on the evolutionary timescale, humans or human ancestors began telling stories huddled around the warmth of a campfire. Stories of success in warfare, failure in love, origin myths, and local gossip are ubiquitous genres. Cultural […]

Edited by Simon Bakke Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool for networking with other researchers and connecting your work with new audiences. But while it seems lower-stakes than more formal modes of communication such as articles and public talks, it requires thoughtful use to get the most out of it. Why should you bother putting in […]

Edited by Simon Bakke ​Imagine getting to have personal conversations with a real scientist when you were in middle school. You could ask them as many questions as you could write and learn about what being a scientist is actually like. How would that change your idea of what opportunities were open to you? How […]

Written by Bernardo Traversari ​Edited by Simon Bakke I recently saw a TedX Talk by Will Stephen, a writer for Saturday Night Live. The theme of his talk was… nothing. Absolutely nothing. His talk wasn’t about any topic in particular, it had no insightful data or quirky animations, he had no message to convey; yet he presented himself as this smart […]

Written by Aven Frey. Republished from Sightline Institute with permission. ​Esteemed climate communicator Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is back on the lecture circuit with a new talk, which I was lucky enough to catch at the University of Washington in mid-May. Dr. Hayhoe’s life and credentials make her uniquely suited to bridge divides and speak from the heart about climate […]

Mixing Unconference Model elements into SCIENCE TALK ’19 Greetings All! Science Talk wants to be responsive to the needs and interests of our conference attendees. So, this year, we are trying out a new conference organization idea. We hope that the change will address the programming concerns that we and the attendees have voiced and allow […]

Each idea, no matter how well-crafted, is best received when tailored to a narrow, specific audience. All the complicated jargon is great—for those that understand it… But, everyone else WILL glaze over and think about a chocolatey snack, the song stuck in their head, or their to-do list. I tackled the topic “What is Climate?” […]

More than a decade ago, I left the commercial advertising business and joined the nonprofit world as the marketing director for an environmental conservation organization. To prepare for my first assignment (updating the board of trustees on ongoing projects), I was given a stack of project reports chock-full of details on implementation sites, baseline and […]

More than a decade ago, I left the commercial advertising business and joined the nonprofit world as the marketing director for an environmental conservation organization. To prepare for my first assignment (updating the board of trustees on ongoing projects), I was given a stack of project reports chock-full of details on implementation sites, baseline and […]

In today’s world, it feels that scientific facts are increasingly under attack. As scientists, it’s tempting to reply by quoting impressive figures and statistics, brandishing our graphs, trying to win the argument. But winning the argument isn’t the same as winning the person.In a piece for Naturejobs by Dr. Eileen Parkes of Queen’s University Belfast, she argues that winning […]

In the public’s view microbiology is an abstract science that is not easily seen nor understood.  To help visualize the science, many microbiology instructors do a basic experiment on the first day of class – environmental swabs. Using what is essentially a fancy Q-tip®, students swab cell phones, backpacks, table tops, and water bottles. Anything people can […]

You’re standing at the lectern, ready to deliver the opening lines of your talk. What do you say first? If this is a conference talk, chances are you start by thanking the organizers for inviting you to speak, then the audience…or if it’s a seminar, you might start with how happy you are to be there…blah blah […]

I recently gave a presentation on how to talk science to normal people. After I finished there was the usual question and answer. One of the audience asked me a fairly simple question, which I sadly fumbled. “How do you explain scientific consensus to someone who doesn’t agree?” I don’t remember the rambling answer I gave […]

Communication is very much like marketing, where how you say something depends entirely on who you are talking to. For example, this blog is for casual readers with various types of education and background. I prefer to write content here in a very causal and conversational tone. I’m okay starting a sentence with a conjugation […]

We thought it would be good to have someplace on this website to discuss and promote opportunities for public engagement, or something similar. Message boards are so 2008, blogs reign supreme…. Let’s start the discussion. Post in the comments any links to online and face to face opportunities to put scicomm skills into practice. Or send us a […]