Tag Archives: teaching

How to Make Your Science Video Memorable

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You want to make sure the information in your science video (or other science communication product) is remembered. This video describes several ways to ensure that the content of your video is remembered (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

View or download the transcript of the video here (just select the arrow to see it full screen).                                                                                                                                           

Download (PDF, 24KB)

One of the biggest obstacles for scientists is explaining our work in everyday language. How do you know if you are succeeding?  In the next post, I describe a tool that will allow you to quantify the readability/understandability of your language.

How to Capture Your Video Audience’s Attention

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When designing your video and developing your storyboard, you want to ensure that it will ultimately attract attention.  Here are a number of ways to capture and keep your viewer’s attention, starting with the one I described in the previous post (be sure to select the HD version and the full screen option for best viewing):

View or download the transcript for this video:

Download (PDF, 23KB)

How to Make Your Science Video Appeal to a Diverse Audience: Find the Core Idea and Express It Simply

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Science videos, especially those created by scientists, often suffer from what I call “Too Many Ideas”.  Come to think of it, many proposals I get to review also suffer from this malady.  The problem is that the videographer or scientist doesn’t identify or focus on a central question or core idea. Instead, they ramble all over the place, introducing several competing ideas within a broad topic (and usually don’t address any of them very well).

It’s much better to select a primary question that can be clearly answered. Secondary information can be introduced, but it should relate to the core idea of your project. Let’s take a specific example. Perhaps you are a scientist and would like to create a short video about your research on coral bleaching.  Your body of work perhaps entails several lines of inquiry, including spatial and temporal patterns of bleaching in relation to ocean warming, coral species susceptibility, anthropogenic factors, effects on reef-dependent fishes, and other topics.  What is the core question that the average person is most likely to want answered?  They most likely want to know what coral bleaching is and what causes it.  A good video for a broad audience would focus on this main question and clearly answer it. Here is one that does just that and additionally includes suggestions as to how the viewer might help prevent coral bleaching.

Or perhaps you conduct research on leaf pigments such as chlorophyll, anthocyanins, or carotenoids.What might be a good core idea or question that would appeal to a diverse audience?  How about: Why do leaves change color in the fall?  Here’s an excellent educational video that answers this question:

So, the first tip for making a science video appeal to a diverse audience is to focus on a core idea or key question and express it simply.

How to Increase Citations of Your Research Articles with Videos

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In the previous post, I described why citations are important to a scientist and how the development of non-technical products such as fact sheets or research briefs can lead people (students or scientists outside your field) to your technical publications.  The more people who are aware of your work, the more likely it is to be cited. I provided some examples, using the Google search engine to demonstrate how such outreach products are more likely to be found and accessed by others.

In this post, I’m going to show how videos and images that you create and post on the internet will dramatically raise your visibility.

If we conduct a search on the terms, global change and mangrove, we get a list of links to various sources of information, including a link to a USGS fact sheet I published a few years ago.  Let’s take a closer look at what else appears in a Google search.  If we select “Video” instead of “Web” in the left-hand navigator bar on the search page, we get a list of available videos on the topic.  Check out what video is at the top of the list (see screenshot below).

example of a google search for videos about mangroves and global change

The video at the top of the list is one of mine, as is the third one on the list.  And if someone plays my videos, they will see in the closing credits, several references to my scholarly papers.

Let’s also quickly look at another popular search option on Google:  images.  If we select the “Image” option in the navigator bar, we are presented with dozens of images of mangroves:

example of a google search for images about mangroves and global change

The first two are photographs I took and that are posted on the web in association with descriptions of my work. Clicking on either one takes the viewer to the fact sheet I talked about in the previous post, again leading them to my scholarly work.  The third image is interesting because it is a screenshot of the first page of a book chapter I authored; it’s on the publisher’s (Springer) website.  When you select the image, you are taken to that website, which features our chapter.  There is an abstract for the chapter, describing what it is about.  There is also a citation download for the chapter, which the viewer can import into any major bibliographic application (Procite, Endnote, etc.).  The viewer can “look inside” the document and view the first page and another sample page.  There is also an email link, allowing the viewer to contact me or my coauthors directly for a copy of this work.

This example is just one I picked at random to illustrate how a science communication product aimed at a general audience can lead students and other scientists to your scholarly work and important people (policy-makers, philanthropists) to you.  Just about any search of the science topics for which I’ve produced a non-technical audiovisual product will put one of my products on the first page of a Google search and usually near the top of the page.  In a number of cases, when my text-based work does not make it onto the first page of the Web search, the Image or Video option will list one of my non-technical science products near the top.

Videos and images are more likely to lead people to your work because that is what people are attracted to, compared to text only information.  Even if they are looking for scholarly texts about a topic, an interesting image or video will almost certainly be investigated out of curiosity.  An important point about videos is that Google often suggests a video on the Web search page.  If you’ve done a video relating to the search topic, it is likely to be highlighted.  That has been my experience, at least.  For example, someone searching for information on the Mississippi River Delta and “sea level rise” will get the following search page:

example of a google search for sea level rise and mississippi river delta

One of my USGS videos is listed on the first search page. My science video on the topic is what puts me on the first search page, and the video image is much more noticeable and likely to attract people than the text-based links. Note also that the first two images for “sea level rise” and “Mississippi River Delta” are the thumbnails for two of my videos.

Very few scientists (at least the ones I know) recognize how important video is in directing traffic on the internet to their websites and ultimately to their scholarly work.  Also, as I described in an earlier post, you are usually prohibited by copyright from posting pdfs of your technical papers on your website (remember, you signed over the copyright to the publisher).  However, you can legally post a summary of that work, either a text-based document, such as a fact sheet, or a video, which as I’ve tried to illustrate in this post, is a sure-fire way to get your work noticed by search engines.

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.