This document provides guidance on effectively communicating scientific research to different audiences. It suggests asking 5 questions to understand the audience: what is the setting of the presentation, what do they already know about the topic, where do they get their information from, what is important to them, and what preconceptions will need to be addressed. The document advises composing a biographical sketch of the target audience to answer these questions. It also notes the importance of designing presentations with the audience in mind rather than just the researcher's perspective.

1. Exercise!
Write a haiku that encapsulates the main idea
of one of your research projects.

4. Accuracy VS. Boredom

5. “SIMPLICITY IS THE
ULTIMATE
SOPHISTICATION ”
Leonardo da Vinci

8. “ ... most scientists start with the engaging quality of
enthusiasm — to get through a degree course, the PhD
and all the research-council hoops, you would need it —
and enthusiasm is derived from a Greek term that
means divinely intoxicated.
” — Tim Radford

10. “...to be effective communicators,
scientists have to learn to stand back from their
own work and see it as strangers might do.”
— Tim Radford

12. “
...designing a presentation without an audience in mind
is like writing a love le er and addressing it
‘to whom it may concern’.
” — Ken Haemer

14. 5Qs
to help understand your audience

16. QUESTION
What’s the se ing of your presentation?

17. scientists policy makers
who’s your
AUDIENCE?
community students

20. QUESTION
What do they already know about your topic?

23. QUESTION
What sources do they get their information from?

27. QUESTION
What’s important to them? What keeps them
awake at night?

28. Photograph: BrotherMagneto

30. Advance discovery and understanding
Broaden participation
Enhance infrastructure
Broaden dissemination
Benefits to society

31. QUESTION
What pre-conceptions will you have to work against?

33. stationarity is the idea that natural systems fluctuate
within an unchanging envelope of variability.
Source: Milly et al., Science, 2008

34. 5Qs
to help understand your audience

35. Exercise!
Compose a biographical sketch of your target
audience. Try to answer our discussion
questions as best you can.
What’s
the se
tting?
What d
o they
alread
Where y know
do they ?
get the
What’s ir infor
import mation
ant to from?
What p them?
reconc
eption
s w il l y
ou nee
d to fig
ht?

37. “Source-oriented” communicators

38. “Receiver-oriented” communicators

40. One last thing.

41. Charles Anderson Dragonflies that cross oceans