{"id":430,"date":"2019-01-31T00:21:42","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T00:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/?p=430"},"modified":"2019-03-23T04:34:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T04:34:12","slug":"making-science-communication-work-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/2019\/01\/31\/making-science-communication-work-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Making science communication work for you"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re not aware, I recently moved to Berkeley, California. Since the move, I\u2019ve had a few people ask what I\u2019ve been up to professionally. This question is more than understandable given that my current title, Freelance Science Writer\/Communicator, is a little nondescript (but at least it\u2019s not \u00a0\u201cCommunications Specialist\u201d or something amiright?). In a little more detail, I\u2019ve been doing contract writing, graphic design, and marketing work with a few biotech companies, organizations, and friends in the Bay Area. I\u2019d like to help researchers and biotech companies effectively communicate their science and thereby have a more positive impact on the world. \u00a0Below I discuss some of the activities I pursue in my quest for better science communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

Updating written scientific web content<\/h2>\n
Unfortunately, the written content found on many lab and company websites is pretty opaque. Generally this content is full of bluster without meaning (\u201cWe\u2019re going to cure cancer!\u201d) or there\u2019s far too much detail (\u201cWe\u2019ve discovered that FatB1 can be used to efficiently produce aliphatic hydrocarbons in Escherichia\u00a0coli<\/em> fed a diet of\u2026\u201d yawn).<\/span><\/p>\n
Some reasons you might want to work with someone like me to help clarify and update your website\u2019s content:<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
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To attract future lab members\/employees<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
\n
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To make it easier for investors to understand your vision<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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To provide a foundation on which you can base your next grant or pitch<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If you actually sell some kind of product, providing easy-to-understand educational content about your product will also make it clear to customers that you care about them and their questions (this is<\/span> inbound marketing<\/span><\/a> in a nutshell).<\/span><\/p>\n
Creating useful scientific graphics and images<\/h2>\n
Even if you have the best written content in the world, it can be improved with images. Many people, myself included, learn and retain information better when it\u2019s presented in a visual format. Compelling images also make social media promotion much easier. I\u2019ve been drawing since forever and have created or edited useful scientific images for<\/span> my own work<\/span><\/a>, for<\/span> Science in the News<\/span><\/a> at Harvard, for<\/span> Addgene<\/span><\/a>, and more. I\u2019d love to see more scientists incorporating graphics and artwork into descriptions and presentations of their work. I think doing so makes science more approachable, makes scientists more relatable, and may provide a means of building trust between scientists and non-scientists. I\u2019d be happy to help you create graphics (or even drawings!) about your work.<\/span><\/p>\n
Crafting presentations that keep people awake and engaged<\/h2>\n
Scientists think deeply about many topics and can get carried away when they attempt to incorporate their many amazing thoughts into a single presentation. Presentations jam-packed with information can be difficult to follow and will likely turn people off. This is unfortunate because a good presentation may help you get your next job, sell your pitch to investors, or even go viral. As another way of making science more approachable, I quite enjoy working with people to organize their thoughts, hone their messages, tell easy-to-follow stories, and create better presentations.<\/span><\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what I\u2019m up to for now. As you might expect, these activities often intersect with one another (i.e. creating web content and images makes it easier to make presentations) and the skills they use can be applied to many different projects. I have even helped edit grants and books. I\u2019ll hopefully be able to share many more examples soon. <\/span><\/p>\n
Finally, I\u2019d really like to stress that I\u2019m not doing all of this solely to make money, but in the hope that enabling better science communication will lead to more trust in scientific findings and attract more diverse types of people to scientific research!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019re not aware, I recently moved to Berkeley, California. Since the move, I\u2019ve had a few people ask what I\u2019ve been up to professionally. This question is more than understandable given that my current title, Freelance Science Writer\/Communicator, is a little nondescript (but at least it\u2019s not \u00a0\u201cCommunications Specialist\u201d or something amiright?). In a … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Making science communication work for you”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-communication","tag-scicomm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Image-for-LinkedIn-Post.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pap2RX-6W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}