Tag Archives: video blogging

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.

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.

Video Review: What Is A Flame?

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Some of you may have heard about the “Flame Challenge” proposed by Alan Alda, the actor, and sponsored by the Center for Communicating Science.  In an effort to promote clear communication of science, Alda challenged scientists and engineers to explain what a flame is, using everyday language that an 11-year old could understand.

There were over 800 entries, which were judged by 6,000 11-year olds around the world.  The medium used to create the explanation was entirely open.  Some entries were written text; others were graphical; and a few were videos.  It was no surprise to me that the winning entry was a video.  Here’s the winning entry by Ben Ames, a Ph.D. student in quantum optics:

What was a surprise to me was how few of the finalists submitted videos.  I was really curious to know how many of the 800 or so entries used video, but could not find that information.  So I could only judge by the proportion of videos in the list of finalists (5) and honorable mentions (8).  Of these (total of 13), only five were video entries, and many were just written text (7 of 13 = 54%).

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that so many scientists and engineers submitted written text to explain what a flame is.  That’s the medium they are accustomed to using.  They clearly did NOT have their audience (11-year olds) in mind when coming up with the medium to convey their explanation of a flame.  I can’t imagine why anyone would think an 11-year old would be impressed with a text explanation.  Before I go any further, here are a couple of the text entries so you’ll get the idea:

Honorable Mention (electrical engineer):  “A flame is like you (a human) and needs oxygen to breathe and must eat to live, except a flame will eat almost anything (wax, wood, paper, etc.).  After a flame eats its dinner, it “poops” out part of what it ate in the form of ashes or melted wax.”

Finalist (engineer): “What is a flame? A flame is an object, a “thing,” something you can see, something you can touch (but don’t do that because it is hot). It is not like other objects, such as a rock, because it “happens” and then goes away.  It “happens” when something (a “combustible”) is heated to a high enough temperature and then starts to burn. This might be wood, or paper, or gas, or oil, or dry leaves, just to name a few. It takes different amounts of heat to get them to burn, but they all do. The big name for things burning is “combustion.” You get the heat by burning something else or — if you have a magnifying glass and focus sunlight on a single spot — you will be able to burn paper and some other things.

There are other ways to make a flame by mixing chemicals, but heating is easiest to understand. When something burns, it changes into ash and/or a gas (“residue”), and light. This light is what is called “a flame.”  So a flame is what you see when something burns.”

Now, I’m not picking on engineers or these two specific examples.  These were two of the shortest entries that made it into the final selections.  Short is good.  Other written entries were quite a bit longer.  These descriptions are simple and clear enough for an 11-year old to understand.  The problem is that for visual learners, verbal explanations are not going to work well.  All of this makes me wonder about the other 780 or so entries that did not make it into the final group.

It’s also clear why the winning entry was the one that the 11-year old judges selected:  It was fun to watch.  I can imagine after reading a bunch of written entries that this video was a welcome relief.  It also contained many of the elements I’ve listed previously for what makes a science video effective:

1. The video is relatively short (7 1/2 min).

2. The information is presented visually (as well as verbally).

3. The video continually adds information at a steady but rapid pace.

4.  There is constant motion going on throughout the video.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding.

7.  The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer (amazement, amusement, curiosity).

8.  The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising (a cartoon man chained in what appears to be Hell).

9.  There is an element of suspense (what will happen to the guy who’s chained up?).

So overall, I thought the winning entry was particularly good from the standpoint of creativity and meeting audience expectations.  One possible criticism, which I came across at another blog by Marc Kuchner, is that the video perpetuates the stereotype of the nerdy, cold-hearted scientist.  I see his point, although I don’t think this video is the worst example of scientist stereotypes (see this post for a really bad video with stereotypes).  Nonetheless, it’s something to keep in mind when designing science communication products.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that so few scientists and engineers bothered to do more than just write a text explanation.  A few of the graphical or video entries were submitted by scientists/engineers who partnered with someone who helped them develop the visual components.  At least they realized that there needed to be a visual explanation to help get across the information to an 11-year old, and they sought out someone who had those skills.

In summary, I think this contest highlighted the enormous gap between what the general public needs and expects in the way of science information and how scientists and engineers are trained to communicate their science.  The fact that a few of the contestants were able to create reasonably good videos is encouraging.  But we can do better.

Message to you scientists and engineers out there who are planning to submit an entry to the next science communication challenge:  Kids who’ve grown up with YouTube are not going to be satisfied with text explanations.