Communicating Our Research

Science is a public good!

NIH-funded research is supported by taxpayers. What we learn from our research is intended to benefit everyone. We have a responsibility as researchers to not just do good work, but be good communicators and stewards of that work.

Unfortunately, around a quarter of U.S. adults do not have confidence that scientists are acting in the best interests of the public. There are many things that contribute to this historically and now, but one reason could be that we aren’t communicating well. The public generally thinks that researchers are intelligent, but they are not good communicators. We have a responsibility to connect with the public, to listen, to be transparent, and to communicate clearly about what we do, why it matters, and who it serves. Good communication is key so that more people can support scientists and advocate on their behalf.

We hope you will find the following resources helpful to support these important communication efforts.

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The Duke CFAR Community Engagement Program developed a brief worksheet and set of prompts designed to help researchers reflect on and explain the “what” and the “why” of their research.

Research communication is a skill that we need to practice, just like any of our other research skills. If this is new to you, it may feel particularly uncomfortable or difficult. But practice helps us get better. We hope the worksheet will help you with this practice.

You can answer these prompts thinking about a specific study or your lab's general body of work. You can do the process of working through this worksheet multiple times for different topics or different audiences.

Please feel free to share the worksheet and resources with others. 

Access the worksheet here: Why My Research Matters: A Reflection & Communication Tool

When your worksheet is completed, that is just the first step. We encourage you to be brave and take your pitch somewhere or start a conversation with someone new.

If you are not currently well-connected in community, that is OK. It takes time to build up these relationships. You can start small by talking to other researchers or you can try to build community relationships on your own. You can also use resources within your institution or organization, such as a Center for AIDS Research, a Clinical and Translational Science Institute, your organization's Community Engagement office, or your organization's Communications Team.

Words have power. Modeling respectful language is important to fight against stigma. Best practices for word choice are to defer to recommendations from people with lived experiences. However, we also recognize that people have different opinions and language evolves; a term that was once well-accepted may no longer be well-accepted. It’s important for us as researchers to demonstrate humility and respect and let go of our defensiveness if someone confronts us about our word choice. We all have things to learn and can continually listen and improve how we communicate.

Resources we have found helpful include:

Using metaphors and analogies can be helpful to explain complex ideas.

An example we found useful is this “Immunology Wars” video created by Nature Video, illustrating how the immune system responds to HIV. We used this video during a community meeting to help our community members get a sense of the kinds of topics our immunology researchers were studying; it was not necessary for them to understand the details about our research, but the basic understanding allowed up to have a conversation about how these researchers could better engage community.

Be careful not to let your analogies become overly complex, abstract, or hard to follow. Sharing and getting feedback from someone else who is not familiar with our work can be helpful.

In our research, we often use words or phrases that are second-nature to us, but may be considered jargon to others. Our goal in replacing jargon is to create understanding. Is there a different word you could use or a way to explain a concept using plain language?

As we think about what language to use, there is a balance needed: We don't want to dilute the meaning too much or oversimplify terms in a way that risks misunderstanding or spreading incorrect information.

Remember: Good science communication is not Google translate.

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Your goal is not to figure out how to explain every piece of your work in a way that others can understand, replacing jargon with plain language. Your goal is to figure out what from your research matters to other people. The tricky thing is that this might not be the thing that feels the most significant to you or for your field, or be what you spent most of your time on. It may not even be what you wrote about in your abstract.

It can be helpful to use tools available to us. AI – when used with discretion and critical review – can be a useful tool in helping to review and adjust language to an accessible reading level (reminder: half of Americans read below a 7th grade reading level). This Cheat Sheet for Community Engagement from Social Pinpoint provides examples of prompts; these can be adjusted to also include prompts about inclusive/preferred language. There is some research behind this too! In this paper, the authors found that AI helped create summaries of science papers that were easier to read than scientist-created summaries. 

Scientific posters are often written for a discipline-specific audience and contain a lot of text. The purpose of a visual summary or infographic flyer is to communicate key takeaways of your research and research process to a general audience with the use of helpful visuals and clear language.

Tips and tricks:

  • Avoid jargon! If there is a term you feel is important to use that won’t be known by a wide audience, be sure to define it using plain language
  • Focus on a key message – What is important for someone in the public to know about the work that you do?
  • Use visuals – avoid directly copying a figure or graph from a paper or poster. Instead, think about your key message and what can help support that information. Do you want to visually highlight an important statistic? Is it helpful to illustrate a process happening in the body or a cell? Can you create a visual metaphor? Is there an image that can help put context to your key message?
  • Make it readable! Use white space and large font (recommended minimum font size of 16pt) and keep it simple as needed so your key message comes through.
  • Think about your audience – You can even try showing it to a friend or family member who isn’t familiar with the science behind your research and get their feedback. Do they understand what you are communicating? Is it interesting?

Helpful resources:

See the CFAR Retreat resources page for examples and inspiration.

Duke CFAR Resources

  • Schedule a consultation with the Duke CFAR Community Engagement team to practice effective communication, particularly for non-academic or interdisciplinary audiences
  • Access slides from our Scientific Communication workshop and view the notes to learn more about these tips:
    • Think about your audience
    • Identify your key takeaways
    • Start with building blocks and definitions
    • Identify jargon & clarify
    • Avoid stigmatizing language
    • Engage the listener
    • As a listener… ask questions even when it’s uncomfortable
  • Access slides from our “Engage and Explain” workshop at the 2024 CFAR Retreat for prompts to help you:
    • Reflect on your personal research path
    • Connect your work to the big picture and identify opportunities for community engagement
    • Practice communication to build trust and collaboration.
  • Watch the SBS Core Rocket Talks:

Other resources