A few things to consider before communicating
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
Communication impacts every aspect of your career in science. You may be writing a grant proposal, a manuscript for a journal, or a book. You may be teaching your undergraduate class, talking with the media, or pitching a donor. You may need to have a difficult conversation with your boss, student, or colleague. There’s just no escaping the need to communicate. So, we might as well be mindful about it and see if we can make our lives, and the lives of our audiences, a little bit easier. And hopefully enjoy the process more along the way!
Here are few things to reflect on early in the communication process that can help shape what you say and how you say it:
Who is your audience? You are probably already (and you should be) using different words and language structures depending on whether you are talking to a first-year undergraduate versus an academic peer in an adjacent field. Different groups of people start with different levels of knowledge, and they need to know different things, so the content and depth of what you will talk or write about depends heavily on who your audience is.
What is your goal? Do you want your audience to learn new concepts in a classroom setting? Or do you want your audience to financially support your new research project? The way in which you communicate—whether that’s through a thoughtful and programmatic lecture or a persuasive and catchy elevator pitch—depends on what you want your audience to ultimately do.
How much time do you have to communicate? You have likely had the experience of giving a 10-minute presentation versus a 45-minute presentation. (And you’ve probably uncomfortably sat through someone trying to give a 45-minute presentation when they only have 10 minutes!) Or, you’ve experienced what it’s like to write a conference abstract versus a full-length manuscript. These examples highlight two very different time and space allotments that place constraints on what you can reasonably communicate. These constraints invite you to prioritize what you say or write, and to decide what can get cut.
What do you want the audience to know? To achieve your goal, there may be critical information that your audience needs to know. For instance, if you are writing a grant, your audience may need to know that you have the necessary expertise to get the project done. If you’re communicating with a journalist who is, in turn, writing a piece for the lay public, you may want this audience to know the one habit change that can improve their health. Keep it focused to avoid blurring the important parts of your message.
What do they already know? Knowing your goal and your audience should give you a reasonable idea of what they already know. This allows you to shortcut some areas of background in favor of expanding on other, new, areas to leads you to your stated goal information. For instance, if I’m talking to a WNBA fan, and my goal is to convey the incredible energy of the sold-out crowd at the Toronto Tempo game, I can get right into it. If I’m talking to someone who doesn’t follow sports at all, I may need to start with sharing the historical and cultural significance of this game as the first home game of the inaugural season of a professional women’s basketball team in Canada.
How will you bridge the gap? There is likely (hopefully!) going to be a gap between what your audience already knows, at one end, and what you want your audience to know, at the other end. Consider what you need to convey in order to fill that gap and bring your audience along with you.
Answering these questions can help you programmatically craft a plan for your communication project, regardless of whether that communication is spoken versus written, and regardless of the whether your audience is a grant panel, a journalist, or a student. Over the next few weeks, we will explore writing versus speaking, and why cultivating a practice for each is important for you both personally and professionally. If you have a communication project that could use some guidance, book a call with me here and we will develop a plan together.
Next week: Writing as thinking
