Category Archives: Communicating with a Diverse Audience

How to Increase Citations of Your Scientific Articles

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We’re talking about science communication and motivations for scientists to reach a broader audience.  By a broader audience, I’m talking about scientists outside your field,  resource managers (who are often biologists, but do not typically read the scientific literature), students (K-12, undergraduate, graduate), the media, policy-makers, and the general public.  In the last post, I explained how a proven record of communicating science to a diverse audience is essential to meeting funding agency requirements (e.g., the Broader Impacts criterion required for proposals to the National Science Foundation).

In this post, I’d like to provide another incentive:  getting more citations and recognition.

google scholar citations

Most scientists are evaluated based on their publications and more specifically on the numbers of citations their publications receive.  One can argue that such indices are flawed and are not a good way to judge someone but the fact is that search committees and promotion review panels routinely examine the citation record and h-index of candidates.  If you have published a number of papers but they’ve not been cited (except by you and other co-authors), then the conclusion will be that your work is not making an impact on the field.  On the other hand, if your papers have been cited hundreds of times by scientists working in diverse fields, then your work is clearly of general importance to science.  Guess which outcome is going to put you at the top of the list of candidates or ensure your promotion?

This type of information can be acquired by examining the citation record, typically in the Thompson Reuters Science Citation Index (available online through the Web of Science).  Another growing data source for citation analysis is Google Scholar (in case you haven’t checked this out, GS citations does an excellent job of accurately compiling your citations).  The h-index is a measure of both number of publications and number of citations.  The h in the h-index means that a scientist has published h papers, each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times.  By the way, if you don’t have a clue about how many times your publications have been cited or what your h-index is, that’s like a student who doesn’t know their GPA (grade point average).  Without such information, you will not know how you stack up against your competition or whether you need to step up your game.

Bottom line…citations are important.  If people are unaware of your work, they won’t be citing it.  The more students and scientists in other fields who have heard of your research, the more citations you will get.  This is where science communication comes in.  A graduate student, for example, may be writing their first paper or research prospectus about a very specific topic but is looking for more general information to set the background for the study.  They will do a typical literature search but will likely also search on Google, especially if they cannot find a scholarly paper that provides the type of basic information they need to put their work into a broader context. Such information was only available in books when I was a graduate student, and I had to trek to the library and search the stacks for a good basic description of a habitat or a species, which simply was not available in single research articles (and even if it was, it was not written in everyday language that I could comprehend).  Nowadays, this type of basic information is everywhere on the internet, and students, in particular, are likely to search for it on the Web.

Let’s take a look at an example of how a non-technical communication product about a research effort can lead people to your technical articles, which they then will be more likely to cite in their technical paper.

First, I’ll use a text-based communication example.  Government agencies routinely produce science communication products geared toward general audiences.  The agency I worked for uses “fact sheets” to summarize information about a science topic or a recent research finding….written in everyday language.  I wrote several of these fact sheets, which turned out to be much more popular than any of my technical publications. One of these summarized my work on global change impacts on mangroves (a type of coastal wetland).  If you conduct a Google search on the terms global change and mangrove, my fact sheet pops up near the top of the list (see screenshot below).

Note that my fact sheet, unlike the scholarly articles listed above it, is available for free.  All one has to do is click on the link, and the viewer is taken to a webpage with the entire fact sheet, including a link to download a pdf of the article (see photo below).

The scholarly articles listed above it on the search page are all good sources of information about mangroves and global change, but you need a subscription to the journal (or pay $35 or more) to read it.  Which one do you think students, in particular, will be likely to read first?  As for citations, I provide several references to my own peer-reviewed journal articles at the end of the fact sheet as well as a clickable link to my email address so that whoever wishes to get copies of those scholarly articles can easily contact me (see photo below).

Not only will such non-technical articles lead people to your technical papers, but they will generally raise your scientific profile on the internet.  In the next posts, I’ll show how videos and other audiovisual items will make you visible when your text-based links will not.

The Diverse Audience: Who Are They and What Are They Looking For?

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diverse audience science video who are theyIn the last post, I made the argument that for a scientist to be competitive, she must not only gain an edge in scientific technical skills but in communication skills, especially ways to connect with a diverse audience.  Because this blog is focused on science videography, I’ll be emphasizing the use of video to reach a diverse audience, but the basic ideas and suggestions I present in this series will work for press releases, fact sheets, and other written or oral communications.

In this post, I’d like to explain what I mean by a diverse audience.  In addition to scientists, there are resource managers, policy-makers, the news media, students, and the general public. These are all important audiences for a scientist to be prepared to communicate with.  Because many of these people are not scientists, you will need to modify your message so that it is understandable, of interest, and accessible to a non-scientist.  Some scientists mistakenly believe that this means “dumbing down” their science message and that in doing so the message becomes less than accurate or perhaps is more likely to be misinterpreted or misused.

However, crafting a good science communication product for a broad audience does not mean the message must be dumbed down.  It means instead that you need to find the core idea in your information and express it simply.  I’ll talk more about this in coming posts.

In addition to focusing on a central idea or message and stating it simply, you must communicate it in a way that is of interest to the broader audience.  There are many ways to accomplish this, which I will also go into detail about in future posts in this series.  For now, the basic way to ensure interest in your information is to show how it relates to your audience.  This result can be accomplished, for example, by including a human-interest aspect in your message.  People can relate better to facts and figures if there is a human element involved that they find interesting or that they can connect with emotionally.  Of course, putting your message into a short video is an excellent way to not only explain your work but to connect with people in a way that text just does not accomplish.

Another point about effective science communications is that the information must be readily accessible to the broader audience. I often hear scientists stating that their research is published in the peer-reviewed literature, and anyone interested can just read about it.  What they are forgetting is that access to technical publications is often limited for non-scientists.  They then may argue that their scientific articles are available on their personal websites as downloadable pdfs, but authors are typically prohibited by journals from posting copyrighted material.  Most journals hold the copyright to your published articles, and these should not be posted on personal websites without permission (you do know this, right?).  However, written summaries or short videos describing your published work can be posted on the internet and will make your work more broadly known and lead students and other scientists to your technical publications.  The more people who become aware of your work, the more it is likely to be cited, raising your H-index.  In upcoming posts, I’ll describe how you might go about creating short videos that highlight a recent publication and mention some applications that will facilitate the development of these and other types of research briefs.

Finally, a lot of people are looking for science information on the internet in the form of video.  YouTube is now a huge search engine, with hundreds of millions of users and channels devoted to specific topics, including science.  The average person looking for information about black holes, deforestation, ocean acidification, or sea-level rise is going to prefer a short, informative video over any other type of communication….and if it’s also entertaining, all the better.  You can reach a lot more people with a video than with a written document.  Students who visit your website are much more likely to click on a video clip than on a text description.  If you can capture a student’s attention with a video, they may be encouraged to seek more detailed and technical information about your work or your research group.

Preparing Science Communications for a Diverse Audience: Why Should Scientists Bother?

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why science video focus diverse audience communicationScientists are increasingly expected to participate in science communication, beyond what we’ve done in the past, which is essentially to talk to each other via technical articles and papers presented at scientific conferences.  Science students are not taught in school to communicate with the non-technical audience, which sends the message that it’s not important to have the skills necessary to communicate with an audience beyond the scientific community.  In fact, many scientists would argue that it is not their job to communicate their science to broader audiences, and they often balk at any suggestions that they do so.

Unfortunately, such an attitude puts you at a disadvantage in the competitive world of science.

Scientists also have a responsibility to promote the value of science to society, which helps combat anti-science groups and misinformation campaigns.  However, I realize that most people will be motivated only by what will benefit them directly, such as research funding, publications, a good job, tenure, and general professional recognition.  So I will focus on one of these:  funding.

Scientists are increasingly expected (and required) to explain their research to non-scientists.  Funding from government agencies, at least in the US, usually comes with a requirement to make the results available to the public and in an understandable format. Some funding agencies expect proposers to show how their project will make a broader impact.  The National Science Foundation, for example, assesses proposals based on two criteria:

  1. What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
  2. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?

Most scientists have no problem understanding and addressing the first merit criterion, but are stumped by the second one.  Many fail to grasp that NSF expects proposers to fully address both criteria in their proposals.  In fact, here’s what NSF says with regard to this point: “Effective October 1, 2002, NSF will return without review proposals that do not separately address both merit review criteria within the Project Summary. We believe that these changes to NSF proposal preparation and processing guidelines will more clearly articulate the importance of broader impacts to NSF funded projects.”

Here are some of the specific questions NSF expects the proposal to answer in addressing the Broader Impacts criterion:

  1. How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?
  2. Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?
  3. To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?
  4. What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

NSF is deliberately vague, however, about how to go about this because they do not want to stifle creativity.  They do provide some examples on their website, but it’s mostly up to the individual PI to figure out a specific plan and write a convincing description of how they will meet the Broader Impacts requirement.

Even if your peer reviewers mainly focus on the technical merits of the proposal, the panelists at NSF will be instructed to carefully consider how well the proposal addressed the Broader Impacts criterion.  Here is what NSF says that panelists should consider in assessing a proposal with respect to the Broader Impacts:  “…the personal, professional, and educational experiences, the future plans and prior accomplishments in the integration of research and education, and the potential to reach diverse audiences and benefit society.”

I’ve been a co-PI on a number of NSF proposals, and my experience is that the second criterion is not taken seriously by quite a few PIs (and not surprisingly, their proposals fail to get funded).  Not only should NSF proposals fully address the second merit criterion, they should provide examples of how the PI has successfully done this in the past, just as they demonstrate their technical expertise by listing their relevant publications.  Do you have any examples of broader impacts to list in your proposals?  If all you’ve got is “I trained x graduate students and x post-doctoral scientists”, you should be aware that you are competing with others who submit proposals with prior accomplishments such as involving K-12 teachers or students in their research; developing a series of videos, tutorials, and interactive websites to educate the general public about science concepts; or holding a series of workshops to teach graduate students the basics of science communication.

There are many other reasons to participate in science communication to broader audiences, but the desire to be successful in competing for grant funding should be sufficient motivation to get you started.  If you are a student or new Ph.D. and have yet to land your first NSF grant, you should be working to develop an edge…not only in the technical aspects of your research, but in communication skills.  If you are a more established scientist, but have not been very successful, especially with NSF or similar funding agencies, you might want to consider whether your proposals have successfully addressed the Broader Impacts criterion.  If you can communicate with non-technical audiences and can list concrete examples to convince a review panel that you can meet the Broader Impacts criterion, you will be ahead of many people applying for grants.

If you seriously plan to develop outreach products or get involved in activities to reach diverse audiences, you first have to know who they are and how to talk to them.  This series of blog posts is meant to provide some beginning guidelines and suggestions for you, the scientist, in communicating your science to diverse audiences.

The next post considers who the diverse audience is and how to connect with them.