Writing about your research is one of the most effective ways to communicate science with your audience, as well as promote and advance science. But to achieve this, scientists need to transform the conceptual knowledge that they have in their brains into the written word on paper.

For some scientists, this seems rather challenging. Many write about a scientific concept by simply pouring out the knowledge in their heads. And when reading their text, it may make sense to them.

However, when it comes to the reader – the so-called audience – this is probably not the case. The scientist would argue that everything is indeed written down. However, a reader unfamiliar with the scientific field may not be able to follow the text or understand its key message and the underlying concept.

Another scenario is when many scientists agree to write an article together – I see this happening often for literature reviews or in scientific panels. Each author adds a few paragraphs here and there, a new definition for a term in their way or another reference. These additions often decrease the flow of the text, introduce one term with several definitions or even use different terms for the same concept.

Why scientific editing is important

As you may have guessed, both these situations warrant thoughtful and meticulous editing to improve the article and make its key message clear. This means that someone needs to go through the text, making sure it speaks to the audience, uses scientific jargon minimally and explains the jargon and scientific concepts coherently.

As scientists, we are trained to edit our written articles ourselves or have a colleague or mentor proofread them. However, many find it difficult to edit their writing. And scientists from the same niche often are so deep in the topic that they do not see the logical gaps that the text has. They do not stumble across the used jargon since they know what the terms mean.

This is when a science editor can help you produce a scientific article that speaks to your audience and explains your science coherently and in an engaging voice. Only profound and professional scientific editing will enhance the clarity of your text, cut ambiguity and efficiently communicate your research impact.

As such, a science editor will save you a lot of time, energy and frustration while improving your communication project. I am sure, you can use that time and energy for your research.

What a scientific editor does

Generally, a science editor will help you adapt your scientific text to the required output format and audience while ensuring the content is logical, clear and engaging. Let’s look at each task in more detail to learn about what exactly a scientific editor does.

Consider your target audience

To me, it often seems to be the most difficult for scientists: think about who is going to read your article. What kind of background knowledge and understanding of your scientific concepts do they have?

A scientific editor will point out the terms, jargon and technical phrases that may not be well-known to your audience. Together, you can find engaging ways to explain those terms, weaving in descriptions and definitions. This will ensure that the text resonates with the reader’s background and level of understanding.

Improve the flow and structure

Many scientists tend to write articles by describing the series of experiments they did and how they got their results. This makes sense when talking to a scientific audience from your field. They know which experiment gives you which type of results and how to interpret them.

However, for a non-scientific audience, this is not the case. They barely understand the scientific concept, let alone the molecular background of your experiments. Hence, you would need to find an engaging story for your article and a coherent and logical flow to connect all your data points.

To achieve this, a science editor can help you organise your content in a structured manner to create your story. This will ensure that the information flows smoothly, helping readers grasp the scientific concept without getting lost in the details.

Close knowledge gaps

Similar to the two previous points, many articles written by scientists often have knowledge gaps. These are parts of the story where the author jumps from one point to the next without explaining how to get there. As an expert in your field, you may not see those gaps anymore as everything makes sense to you.

Yet, your reader may not have all that background knowledge. They need you to lead them through your story from one point to the next.

A scientific editor will be able to highlight those gaps that need further explanation and point out inconsistencies. This will make sure that your reader can follow your train of thought and get your message.

In case you do not have the financial means to hire a professional editor, friends or peers from different fields may be able to help you. They can point out areas they did not fully understand or where they were unable to follow the story. But then you still need to modify the text yourself, while a scientific editor could support you with that task.

Make your text engaging and accessible

Another myth that seems to hold in the academic field is that scientific writing is dry and boring. However, I think, a scientific article should convey the same passion and sense of awe that you have for your research topic.

Yes, I know, it can be tricky to weave that into your text and create an exciting and colourful scientific story. Gladly, a science editor will find ways to enhance your text by improving the writing style and adding anecdotes or real-life examples to captivate your reader.

On another note, many scientific articles contain sentences of more than 30 words. I’ve seen drafts for blog posts containing paragraphs of four or five lines consisting of one sentence. Who is going to remember the beginning of the sentence when reaching the end? No one!

A scientific editor will chop these hyper-long sentences into three or four. This will enhance the readability and accessibility of your text to help your reader follow the story.

Correct grammar and language

As we know, most scientific literature is written in English. And the English language can be tricky to handle in the sense of grammar and spelling. Since only a few scientists have English as their native language, this can be a huge obstacle.

Here, a scientific editor will be able to support you and correct the grammar, punctuation and spelling errors in your text. This will ensure your text sounds more professional, increasing its credibility and preventing misunderstandings.

Write with one voice

As in the example from the beginning, you may have written an article with several other authors. Now, the final draft contains a mixture of writing styles and definitions, repetitions of phrases and statements and gaps in the flow due to deletions or additions.

Such a draft needs profound editing to clean up the text and make it consistent. A scientific editor will ensure to use one voice and the same terms and phrases across the whole article. Plus, they will help you fill in the knowledge gaps and improve the flow of the text.

Enhance your writing (and editing) style

If you are just starting in the scientific field and are writing your first article, you may find yourself struggling with the writing process. Writing scientific articles is probably distinct from what you have learned before entering academia. Unfortunately, you have a pretty steep learning curve ahead; but trust me, you can do it!

To improve your writing skills, you can get a science editor or science writer to help you. Let them edit your text and learn from the improvements to understand what good writing is. By copying their style, you will develop your writing skills.

So, I want to encourage you to keep penning those drafts and trying to explain your research to different types of audiences. When it comes to writing, practice makes perfect. Copy the writing tricks from a professional editor and your writing will get better. And the better your initial draft, the less editing will be needed later.

Using AI for scientific editing

Now that we’ve seen how a scientific editor can support you in improving your articles, you may ask whether to use AI for the scientific editing process. While this topic warrants a whole article, I want to comment on it at least briefly here.

I and others have seen that AI software is not very reliable when it comes to writing scientific texts. Their algorithms may lack data to write a comprehensive and detailed story which may lead them to make up fake data and citations.

This cannot be accepted for writing scientific articles!

However, AI software may be of help for the editing process of your scientific article. Free online grammar and spell checkers, such as Grammarly or Hemmingway Editor, can catch basic errors. They allow you to improve the grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. And to some extent, they can also suggest how to improve sentence structures or the readability of your text.

Yet, they fail to see the big picture and the overall flow of your article. They do not identify knowledge gaps or adopt the language, jargon or scientific descriptions to a particular audience.

So, these tools can help you with the basic editing process. Yet, I suggest that an expert scientific editor goes through your text to make sure your content flows and is coherent and attractive to your target audience.

Hiring a scientific editor to improve your article

As you and I know, writing scientific articles is not easy. That’s why getting support to improve the clarity, flow and style is crucial for any article.

Sure, you can try to edit the article yourself or ask colleagues or friends to help you. But they will not have the same expertise as a professional science editor. Instead, a science editor will ensure that your article is clear, accurate, engaging and tailored to the readers’ level of understanding.

This will enhance the quality and credibility of your article, and ultimately its impact. Only with a professional and impactful article, you can clearly communicate scientific knowledge to advance science and elevate the scientific discourse. In my opinion, this is the reason why editors are indispensable for science communication and the scientific community.

The post The key role of scientific editing in science communication appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

But these data don’t mean much to people outside of scientific expert fields. And yet, scientists are supposed to talk about research and communicate findings and great results.

From research in science communication, we know that if you throw data at people (scientist or not!), they won’t remember any of them. You need to pack these data into stories. Such a story can be about you finding the answer to a research question or can be the adventures of the players from your research project.

Improve your science communication skills by engaging with your audience

While it is interesting in the scientific field to talk about the successes and failures of your experiments, to non-researchers they might not mean much. For someone from outside of your expert field, it is more important to learn about the actual results of your experiments and how these can help their lives.

For them to understand this, you need to wrap your data into a fun and entertaining story about a hero and its journey. This approach helps you improve your science communication skills while your audience is able to learn about your research project.

Here, I want to help you find the story in your data, identify your hero and give it personality and character so that your audience can better understand your research project. Generally, the concept of storytelling (not only in science communication!) boils down to two main concepts:

• Give your player personality and a struggle
• Let your player DO something to get out of this struggle

Let’s look at how you can improve your science communication skills with these approaches.

Start your science story by giving your player character

In your research, you likely focus on one main component: a certain bacterium, a protein, cancer cells or the immune system. Just as this component is the focus of your research question, it should be the main player in your science story.

So, the whole story should focus on the character of your main player and a struggle that it is trying to solve. Think about the most exciting stories you heard or told. They are usually about someone facing an issue or solving a problem. To engage your audience, you need to do the same with your player.

The struggle is most likely the research question that you are focussing on. And this research question not only drives your research project but also your science communication story.

The idea is to re-formulate your research question into an accessible struggle for people to identify with.

Struggles your player could face in your science story

• You are researching how bacteria are adapting to low-nutrient environments. Your main player is your bacterium and its struggle is that it is hungry and looking for food.
• You are researching a signalling cascade involving on- and off switching of proteins. Your main player is your protein and its character is that sometimes it feels like being active but sometimes it is lazy and doesn’t want to work.
• You are researching metastasis of breast cancer. Your main player is the cancer cell that wants to explore new locations to find better places to live.
• You are researching how the immune system fights SARS-CoV-2. Your main player is the immune system – or specific parts of it – and its goal is to protect the human body from dangerous invaders.

These struggles are real-life struggles. Everyone knows how it feels to be hungry, to sometimes feel active or not, to explore new locations or to protect something from someone.

So, everyone can relate to these stories and thus to the scientific problem you are trying to solve. This already helps your audience understand what your research is about and you can hook them easily. Next, we will send your player on a journey and use storytelling to reveal your actual science story.

Use storytelling and send your player on a scientific hero’s journey

You might have heard of the hero’s journey in books like Harry Potter or movies likes Matrix. It is about the protagonist finding its calling, being faced with a struggle and having to overcome these struggles.

In science communication, you can use this hero’s journey to tell your science story. You can send your play on a similar journey by talking about the struggles it is facing. Make the audience understand just HOW uncomfortable the situation is for your player, explain its scientific background and where the struggle comes from.

Now, you send your player on a journey and tell the story of how it overcomes these struggles. It usually takes an action to solve the issue and to adapt to the uncomfortable situation.

Your player resolving its struggles

Going back to our examples from above, this hero’s journey could look like this:

• Your bacterium is hungry, but gladly it has some antennae on its surface to “see” food and follow its traces. Hence, it activates its flagella to swim towards the food and eat it.
• Your protein needs a specific partner to bind to, keep it happy and motivated to stay active. Hence, the protein will always seek to bind to the partner and this is what affinity is about.
• Your cancer cell needs to loosen from the tumour to start wandering through the body on its own. Once it found a location to settle down, it will start producing protective walls to shield it and make sure it can grow in the new place.
• The immune system is constantly fighting invading pathogens by throwing toxic weapons at them or eating them. But some pathogens know how to escape these weapons and zig-zag away from immune fighters.

Tell your science stories with actions

From these examples, you can probably see that it comes down to using actions and verbs that your reader can relate to.

Yes, in science you might say “acquire nutrients”. However, your reader might not know what you actually mean. So, just use the word “eat”. Everyone knows what “eating” means and it still is the same as “acquiring nutrients”. Hence, stick with the language of your reader.

This is also true for other phrases that you might probably use on a daily basis. The idea is to lose that scientific jargon and use verbs and adjectives that help your audience picture your story.

This is why in the examples above, you can see the following verbs instead of their scientific equivalents:

• see, swim, seek to bind, loosen, wander, grow, fight, escape, throw, zig-zag
• hungry, happy, active, protective, invading

Everyone can imagine a player doing all these actions. Everyone knows what it means to see something or to wander around. And everyone can imagine something growing, fighting or escaping.

So, now when you think about how you can put your scientific data into an engaging story, try to use words that are powerful and convey actions. This will stick with your audience and help them understand your science story and thus your research project.

Improve your science communication skills by telling a story

Next time, you are struggling with your science communication project, try to wrap your scientific data into an engaging science story. Like this, you look at your research project from a completely different angle. Plus, it will be easier for your audience to engage with your research.

This storytelling aproach will help your audience understand what is going on with your player and they can learn about your research project. And this is what good science communication is all about.

The post Improve your science communication skills by finding the story in your data appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

While there was so much amazing Microber #SciArt tweeted every day, one of my favourites was probably the illustration of a German teacher explaining bacterial conjugation.

For microbe lovers: More than just Microber!

As a microbe lover yourself, I’m sure you cannot highlight the amazing things microbes do for us enough. And since microbes are involved in so many activities in our lives, many celebration days throughout the year are only possible thanks to microbial activity. This is why on the #FEMSmicroBlog, we published a post about days that celebrate some kind of microbial superpower. Just think of International Coffee Day or World DNA Day!

And one bacterial superpower, we could actually use to save us from viral infections. How? As we discuss in a BacterialWorld post, the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis lives in insects like mosquitoes. And within these insects, the bacteria compete with viral intruders like the Zika, Dengue or Yellow Fever viruses. Like this, Wolbachia keeps mosquitos virus-free, so that they cannot transfer the virus to us anymore when they bite us. This means that Wolbachia also protects us from these viruses; thanks bacteria!

For academics

Sometimes teaching microbiology can be a bit tough. This is why Dr Isabel Murillo created her own Microbial Pursuit Game to teach microbiology knowledge in a fun environment of playing a game. We talk more about this exciting project on the #FEMSmicroBlog.

For science communicators

If you are a budding science communicator, then let me tell you that I know how starting a science communication project can be quite overwhelming. This is why I have two huge treats for you.

In the post “How to get started in science communication“, I walk you through the single steps of how to get started in this exciting field. Together, we will identify your superpower – that is your skill which you will use to communicate science. Then, I recommend that you craft that skill and produce exciting scicomm content that you publish on your own platform. And please let me know what else you need to get started with science communication.

Second, once you started your science communication project, make sure to organise all your tasks, posts and social media posts. For this, I highly recommend Notion as I explain in “How Notion can help you organise your writing and blogging projects. To get started with Notion, I created a free template for you to keep track of all your science communication projects as well as any other tasks you have on your plate.

Over the last weeks, I was a bit unhappy with how you can access the guides from my website as the system did not work as smoothly as I wanted it to. So, I decided to give out my FREE guide on how to start a science blog directly on the website.

This was it for this month, I hope you’re all safe and keep talking about your research and science!

The post A full month of microbes and Sciart: Microber appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

Without a great organisation system, this can become pretty confusing quickly.

However, two systems help me keep track of all my projects, clients, tasks, budget, finances and even free time. One is the Getting Things Done Methodology by David Allen. His system is great, even though he established it as an offline system. And well, my whole life is happening digitally.

So, I needed a second system to realise my own Getting Things Done Setup.

And I found Notion. My lifesaver.

With Notion, I can keep track of all my business projects, clients, tasks and budget and connect them to my life goals, calls and meetings, personal tasks, travel plans, finances etc. It is beautiful.

Plus, it is free. Yes, there is a paid plan, but so far I have not felt the need to get it. The free Notion plan offers everything that one needs to organise their blog, business and even whole life.

Another great feature of Notion is that it syncs across all your devices. There is a great desktop app and it works on your browser. However, if you’re on the go and have an idea or want to check out something, you have all your data with you on the phone as well! There does not seem to be an easier way to organise your life and its projects than with Notion!

This is why I am convinced that anyone can use Notion as a project management tool to set up and organise their science blog and tasks list. To show you HOW convinced I am, I created a free Notion template for you to get used to Notion and organise your writing and blogging projects.

But before diving deep into the complexity of Notion, let’s have a look at Notion’s basics.

How does Notion work?

Notion is an amazing workspace that aims to combine all the different tools you use throughout your day:

• a document to write in
• your to-do list to tick off tasks
• a library to collect all your data, knowledge, overviews
• a planner to organise your day
• a calendar to keep track of your meetings and appointments
• a communication tool to make team work easier

To achieve all that, Notion provides you with lots of amazing features. I highly recommend checking them all out once you got accustomed to Notion. Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming at the beginning. This is why we start here with those features that help you organise and manage our science blog.

To write blog posts, we actually only need a text editor in a workspace. And Notion gives you exactly that in a minimalistic environment. You have a blank document to write in and a few features to highlight your text. You really don’t need much else to write an article.

Next, you might want to link out to different pages and Notion helps you easily with that as well. You can embed content from other Notion pages, the web, to-do lists, databases, images, calendars, PDFs, maps or whatever else you need to collect all your knowledge. Also, the ability to create pages within pages within pages is extremely helpful – think of it as creating folders within folders within folders to keep all your data clear and organised.

Yet, the best feature of Notion is to create databases. In each database, you can create as many entries and columns as you want and add any sort of information. You can connect different databases and link to any database entry from anywhere.

Plus, each database entry creates a new page, in which you can create more pages, to-do lists, databases, images, texts etc. You really have all the possibilities to create your Notion workspace the way you want it.

Okay, now with these basics, let’s have a look at how exactly you can use Notion to organise your blogging and writing projects. To get started, you can use my Notion template for bloggers and writers to keep track of your science blog project.

Use Notion to organise the entries of your science blog

To start using Notion for your science blog, I suggest creating a database of your blog posts. It would be good to save the publishing date, title of the entry, a three-word summary, link to the entry and its status (is it published or does it still need formatting or another editing round?).

For each database entry (or blog post), you create a completely new page. Yet, these pages aren’t just normal pages. Each of these pages has additional features – so-called properties. And these properties can be anything from a date, a tag, a file, a link, an e-mail address or just basic text.

These properties give Notion its true power because you can sort your databases according to any of these properties. For example, you can have a canvas overview in which you have all tasks sorted according to their statuses.

You can also choose a view with only those entries that contain a certain property. For example, you can view only those entries that have not been published yet – so, only entries for which the Status property is not “published”.

And then you can sort your entries according to the dates when you want to publish your posts. This helps you see clashes with other projects or tasks that you’re working on.

Okay, so this helps you keep an overview of all your blog posts. But how does Notion help create and write your blog post?

You probably realised that to write blog posts, you usually follow the same steps. And with Notion, you can create so-called templates so that you always complete the same steps or create the same types of posts.

You can add these templates to any database entry, and you will see the steps that you added to your template beforehand. Now, you have your roadmap to a new blog post.

And in this template that I created, you can see how this adds two new pages within that entry? One to write down your research notes, the other one to write your draft. And in between, you have those important checkboxes to help you keep track of your progress.

How Notion helps you collect your data

As stated in the beginning, I am a huge fan of the Getting Things Done Methodology by David Allen. It helps me keep track of all my goals, projects and tasks that I need to do both related to my business and personal life.

And one major feature of the Getting Things Done system is the so-called Intray. Your Intray collects everything that you cannot deal with at the very moment. This can include notes from a meeting or call, websites you want to read, smaller to-dos, birthdays you should not forget, you name it…

So, I set up Notion to provide me with such an Intray function. In the Notion template I created for you, you can use the database “Intray” to collect all these facts, to-do’s, snippets, websites, notes… I also recommend you to connect your Intray to the Browser extension “Notion Saver”. Like this, whenever you come across something worth reading, you save it directly into your Intray and deal with it later.

Now, all you need to do is go through your Intray on a regular basis to sort out what’s in there. Either you complete the task at that moment, create a task for your blog or file the content in your library.

Yes, the library is another helpful collection of data in your Notion workspace. You can create different libraries according to different topics or keep one database and tag each entry with a topic. So, when writing your blog post, you can always link back to the entries in your library.

Organise your projects with Notion by connecting everything

As usual in life, everything is connected. Even your projects and tasks. And Notion helps you keep track of all these connections.

Not only can you create links to pages or database entries everywhere… But you can also connect a database entry to another entry from either the same or a different database. And this is how Notion becomes a true powerhouse in project management!

With the property “relation” you can first choose a database that you want to connect your current database with. Then, for each entry, you can link that relation property to an entry from that other database.

And what is more, you can choose to display a different property from the linked entry. I know it is getting a bit complex. Look at the example below. We have an entry to create a social media post about a blog post that we will publish on a certain date. Now, you link the entry for the social media post to the entry of the blog post.

Next, you add a “rollup” and tell it to show the “Date Due” of that linked entry. Now, in the rollup property that I renamed to “Published by”, you see the date when you want to publish your blog post. Hence, you can use this information to prepare your social media post to publish it after the publishing date of the blog post.

Use this Notion template to organise your science blog

Setting up these basics helps you keep track of all your data, deadlines and to-dos. I even organise my whole online business with Notion – yes, Notion is highly versatile, so it can be used to organise all aspects of your life!

If you want to start organising your science blog and writing projects with Notion, get the template for free here. By signing up for the newsletters, I will also tell you more about how I use Notion and what else you can do with this amazing software.

The post How using Notion helps organise your writing and blogging projects appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

However, if you decide to get into science communication and make it part of your career, I recommend following these three steps:

1. Learn about science communication and your specific niche
2. Produce science communication content using your skill(s)
3. Publish your content on a platform

Each of these steps can look differently depending on who you ask. Consider the way you prefer to learn, the skills you have to produce content and where and how you want to publish your content. So, here I want to give you some ideas on how to get into science communication and tips to establish yourself in the field.

Learn about science communication

Obviously, before diving into any sort of activity, you have to understand how it works. You need to acquire or manifest certain skills to establish yourself in the field.

Lucky you, that there are loads of resources for science communication aspirers. And it is completely up to you to decide how to learn, how to engage with content and which form of content you prefer.

So, here I compiled a list of science communication resources from which you can learn the basics. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list (I am grateful for any comments and more resources in the comment section below). Also, I recommend anyone who knows right away that they want to get into science communication, consider doing a degree in the field.

Read books, blogs or newsletters

When I decided to dive into the field of science communication, I read any book and guide I could find about this topic. I compiled my favourite books on science communication for those who are looking for helpful resources.

With e-mail Newsletters becoming incredibly popular, I highlight here my favourite ones that I use to stay up-to-date with the field:

• The SciCommer by Heather Doran
• Science Writing News Roundup by Marianna Limas

Lastly, follow and read blogs on science communication. These share background on scicomm or give tips on different aspects of science communication. For example, on my blog #ScienceWritingTips, I talk about ways to improve scientific writing both for academics and non-academics.

On the Open Notebook, you can find many resources from science journalists about how to write stories about science and everything else that is important for efficient science writing.

Listen to podcasts

When it comes to podcasts, I have one favourite: I absolutely love Alan Alda’s Clear and Vivid podcast, in which he talks to scientists and science communicators. Generally, the podcast is about communication, relating to an audience and empathy. And with the way Alan talks to his guests about their research, you can learn a lot about how to conduct interviews with scientists and help them find the right words.

Another great podcast on science communication is by Sophie talks science. As an experienced science communicator, she explains which tools or traits you need for a science communication career. Sophie also talks about how to get started in science communication and how to find your dream job.

Otherwise, you can find an extensive list of scicomm podcasts in this Google sheet.

Join conferences

Following a few conferences on science communication throughout the year will probably give you the most in terms of knowing what is going on in the field. Science Talks organises one of the biggest conferences for science communicators every year and is probably one of the best conferences I ever attended. They usually have talks on the science of science communication or introduce new initiatives or Slams for new scicomm project ideas.

Get individualised coaching

If none of these ways to learn sound appealing to you, you might consider getting personalised coaching. This can include workshops or webinars on science communication for example from the Alan Alda Centre of Science Communication that teaches the so-called Alda Method. This aims to establish trust and empathy with your audience and is meant to help scientists relate with their audience to communicate their science.

Other workshops can focus more on storytelling in science communication. Or you can hire me as a coach to guide you through the process of writing your very first science writing article. Over a period of weeks, we will together develop a strategy to outline and write your piece with the aim to explain your complex science in simpler terms and find the right voice for your target audience.

If you are looking to educate a team of researchers or your lab members on science communication, you can hire me to give a webinar on a chosen science communication topic. Send me an email and let me know what you are looking for and which science communication message you want me to convey in the webinar.

Produce science communication content…

Okay, now you learned how to get started in science communication and what it takes to be a science communicator. Next, you need to figure out what sort of science communication content you can and want to produce.

Generally, I suggest you go with the skill you are most comfortable with. Then, think about what sort of content you can produce with it.

You might be a skilled drawer who likes to create comics, animes or watercolours. You might be able to create amazing and colourful pieces to explain any type of science with this skill. Then the SciArt community of Lifeology might be a good platform to check out.

Other artists like to stitch, glue, dance or sing about scientific topics. There are no boundaries on what to do and how to use your skills to bring across a scientific message!

Maybe you like putting pen to paper and writing about scientific concepts and even aim to become a science writer. Then, writing about science might be your way to go, so get some inspiration about what science writers do.

Or maybe you like talking about science to your audience. Then starting a podcast or video channel could work for you.

Note that your preferred way of engaging with content usually becomes your preferred way of producing content. I, for example, am a great reader, always have been. So, for me, it was easy to decide to become a writer. Whatever your preferred skill is, make sure you feel completely comfortable using it and then get started!

…and publish your science communication content

So, you figured out which of your superpowers you want to use to create science communication content. Now, it is time to start a platform where you publish your content. You will use this platform to showcase your scicomm products and establish yourself as a science communicator.

Start your own science communication platform

Starting a website or social media platform about a topic that you’re really passionate about, is not that difficult. Make sure you stick to the skill that you feel most comfortable with!

To start your own website, podcast, video channel or social media account does not take too much. There are lots of resources out there that tell you how to start a science blog or launch a science podcast. Even for starting a science website, you can find helpful guides and blog posts – yes a blog on blogging does make sense, right?!

After you set up your project, it comes down to your own motivation and how often you want to publish your science communication content. I suggest not setting your goal too high at the beginning. At the same time, you want it to be high enough so you take the project seriously. Find the right way that works for yourself.

This could look completely different for everyone: Two short social media posts per week; one longer blog post every week; one podcast episode every two weeks or one video per month. It’s all up to you – one of the perks of having your own science communication project! And don’t forget to shout about your project on your social media platforms to reach the right audience!

Guest blog or team up

Maybe the idea of you alone starting a website, blog or video channel does not appeal to you. Maybe you would rather have the support of a team. That is totally fine as well.

Find some people that have the same goals as you. And together you can start an even bigger project. I can also tell you from experience that a science communication team project is more fun than going it alone. You always have someone to rely on but also to be accountable for. Plus, brainstorming with people with similar goals will get you amazing results, pretty sure of that!

Or you can join an already established team as a volunteer. There are bigger blogging consortia like SciRio or ClubSciWri. Connect with them and publish posts with them while also getting feedback from their seasoned writers and editors. Or maybe you want to produce videos about STEM-related topics. Then check out STEMcognito as they are always grateful for any support.

How can YOU get started in science communication

There is no right or wrong way of getting started in science communication. The important point is that you get started!

You can start slowly or go all in right from the beginning. Completely up to you as long as you show that you indeed want to communicate science. And then let’s see how you like it or whether you might stick with it … 😉

The post How to get started in science communication appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

This also means that I laid a bit low with my client’s work; everyone deserves a break – or even a proper weekend – once in a while. Yet, we managed to publish some really cool posts in the last weeks. Let’s have look.

For microbe lovers

Have you ever thought about which microbes live on the skin of your hands? In a guest blog post, Maria Martynova describes how the skin microbiome on our hands helps and protects us.

If you have not thought about the microbes on your hands, what about the microbes that live on our roads? The blog post “Which microbes live on our streets?” on the FEMSmicroBlog talks about how to detect road microbes and how their composition is influenced by traffic pollution.

For academics

In the post “The World Microbe Forum goes online”, I describe my experience at the World Microbe Forum. This online conference was the first of its kind. Two major microbiology societies, FEMS and ASM, did amazing jobs at bringing the microbiology community closer together and giving researchers an online platform to present their newest results and trigger discussions.

As researchers, we also need to think about how much plastic waste we produce in the lab. The post “We need to reduce the energy footprint of microbiology research” looks at this important issue and gives some advice on how lab-based microbiologists can cut down on plastic waste and improve our planet’s health.

For science communicators

On the FEMSmicroBlog, we highlighted the Bad Bugs Book Club as an exciting public engagement project. Joanna Verran founded a reading community of books with a microbial disease focus.

For everyone, who wants to dive into a science communication career: I gave a webinar “From the bench to the beach: a scientific career is as sunny as you make” about my journey into the science communication field and how I aim to reach my goal of improving lives by sharing knowledge.

That was MicroComms’ relatively short Summer Newsletter! I hope you can enjoy some Summer vibes wherever you are and relax a bit. Stay healthy!

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This was a great weekend full of beachvolleyball, sun and laughter. It is so important to get away from the laptop and e-mails once in a while to recharge my batteries and take care of my mental health.

But let’s look at the scientific content that we produced this month.

For microbe lovers

We published an article about Joe Harrison’s study from the University of Calgary. He and his team discovered a new way of how bacteria learn about temperature changes in their environment. Some bacteria use a thermometer protein to know whether they are inside a human body so that they can switch on their virulence program.

Read the full article on UCalgary News “New research reveals bacteria sense heat to learn about their location“. And if you want your research project or publication to be featured in an online article, make sure to contact me (sarah-at-microbialcommunications.com).

We published several interesting blog posts this month on the FEMSmicroBlog. For example, in “Physiology determines where an organism thrives”, you can learn about how metabolic functionalities determine an organism’s ability to thrive in its environmental niches.

On BacterialWorld, we talk about how bacteria can take care of our environment and the planet’s health. Rachel explains how microbes can be used as biofertilizers to improve the soil’s nutrient availability so that plants grow better.

For academics

On STEMcognito, we started a new huge thing: A video interview series for scientists to chat about their research or any other STEM-related subject. So far, I talked to a few academics and we plan on publishing our STEMterviews on a regular basis.

The first STEMterview that is available is with our STEMcognito CEO, Dr Marta Gabryelska. She and I chatted about her research topic and her passion for science communication. If you want to learn more about why Marta founded STEMcognito, make sure to watch the full STEMterview.

For science communicators

This month, we finished our webinar series to “start your own science communication space (YOSS)”. Our participants created several new websites and blogs that communicate scientific topics, research articles or concepts.

So, check out these science website and blog and make sure to follow them on social media!

PGeeSciARt – AN AMALGAMATION OF SCIENCE AND ART

S’more Science

LuminiScience – Illuminating one concept at a time

Science & Technology Space – A place where scientific information is disseminated in your own language

Get-Set-Biology!

I am currently working on collecting feedback from the webinar series to understand which points I did not address or which areas are still unclear. I then want to put together a comprehensive guide on starting a science website or science blog.

The aim of this guide will be to provide you with technical background, blogging strategies and design ideas to get you started with your own science communication project. If you have any questions or topics that you think I shall not miss, please let me know.

If you want to get started and learn more about how to address your audience correctly with your science communication activities, make sure to check out SciComm Society.

Fighting Covid19-misinformation

At STEMcognito, we are aware that a lot of misinformation about the Covid19-pandemic is circulating. And we know that with our platform we can reach many people worldwide. Hence, we started a Covid19-video series to explain relevant topics concerning the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid19-disease.

Make sure to check out our library of videos on Covid19-related matters. Please also share them with anyone you think should learn more about the Covid19-vaccine or why the virus affects men and women differently.

Don’t forget to stay healthy and enjoy the good weather if it arrived at your place by now! Also, a good time to get your mind off the trouble of the last months.

The post Bacteria, beach and beers at MicroComms appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

I also moved to the South of my tropical island paradise in digital nomad style: packing my suitcase and backpack and catching a bus. Traveling light is the key these days!

For microbe lovers

For World Immunisation Week, we published on the FEMSmicroBlog a piece on how yeast can be used as a vehicle to deliver nucleic acid-based vaccines.

It was Earth Day on 22nd April. So, on BacterialWorld, with Noémie and Rachel we wanted to highlight the many ways of how bacteria can help us save this planet by keeping it green and healthy. Check out and share our infographic.

Fitting to the same occasion, we published a post about the superhero bacterium Zymomonas mobilis that produces bioethanol. Researchers are working hard on trying to figure out how we can use this bacterium to tackle our energy crisis.

For academics

In this interview, the Professor Nick Lane discusses his experience of being active as a biochemistry researcher and an award-winning science writer. I was intrigued by his way of explaining his view of the origin of life and how he manages to cover both career paths.

https://youtu.be/11HgHvnB5HI

I wrote an article about why every research lab needs a good online presence. In there, I also discuss how best to highlight your research to attract new lab members and help society make sense of science.

https://es.microbialcommunications.com/science-communication/research-lab-website/

On the FEMSmicroBlog, we published a post that discusses how scientists can harness social media for science communication purposes. This interview is especially helpful for early-career scientists to better market their research outputs.

For science communicators

The essay “Rethinking science communication: reflections on what happens when science meets comic art” explores how science communicators can benefit from comic art. The authors argue that the whole research process from conceptualisation to publication can improve from working together with science artists.

Together with SciRio, I gave two webinars on starting a science blog in the last weeks. It has been a great experience so far. And I love seeing what the attendees came up with and how they aim to showcase their research projects. One more session to go next Saturday. Then we will go through each new science blog and look at how to spread the word about their projects.

With STEMcognito, we are currently preparing videos to answer questions related to Covid19-vaccines. We saw that there is a lot of misinformation around this topic. So, we decided to do our part by addressing some urgent questions risen by the community.

That’s it from us for this month. Enjoy the Spring months wherever you are and stay safe and healthy!

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The microbes in my Winogradsky columns also seem to enjoy the warm temperatures and develop some really cool colours. Any guesses as to what kind of microbes are growing in there?

But let’s have a look at what we published this month and at some interesting articles I wanted to share with you.

For microbe lovers

Last week was World Tuberculosis Day to mark the day Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis. So, on the FEMSmicroBlog, we had a great article about the challenges that we still face in the fight against this deadly bug.

On BacterialWorld, we introduced two super cool bacteria and their superpowers: Caulobacter crescentus and its ability to produce the strongest glue known in microbes. The second superhero bacterium is Janthinobacterium lividum, because it produces a colourful antibiotic to protect frogs from deadly fungi. As always, the illustrations are done by the amazing Noémie Matthey.

And if you want to see what a scicomm project as a video could look like, check out the video I just recorded for our new video platform STEMcognito. Yes, I overcame my discomfort of having to listen to my own voice. I recorded a presentation for everyone to learn more about some fascinating bacterial nanoweapons.

For academics

If you are still not convinced that science communication is for you, read this research study from the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science. It states that we are in urgent need of the work of science communication training organisations. The authors argue that we need to provide scientists with the right skills to communicate their research outside of their fields. They also highlight three successful training programs for scientists to engage their audiences. You can read the summary of the publication in this article “Communication centers are in a unique position to help scientists bridge science and society“. Make sure to contact me if you feel they are right and you want to improve your science communication skills.

Are you writing your next research article or a blog post about your recent paper? Do you generally pay attention to the verbs you use? You certainly should! Verbs are the most powerful part of every sentence and unfortunately in academic writing, they are often misused. Therefore, I compiled a list of tips of how you can improve your science or academic writing just by using better verbs. Read the article here:

For science communicators

Have you thought of starting your own science communication project in form of a website or blog? Together with SciRio, I will give a 3-part webinar to get you started with your own website. In these webinars, we will go through the whole process of setting up your domain, website and blog content. This aims to help you bring your scientific wisdom out into the world.

If you think about starting a career in science communication, have a look at the recent discussion panel at Flemingo. Together with the two science communicators, Joel Hornby and Dr. Jakob Morath, I chatted about how to get started in science communication and what sense of freedom and accomplishment this career path can bring you.

In this video, Andy Extance, chair of the Association of British Science Writers, explains the underlying chemical mechanisms of what engages readers. He argues that communicating is all about psychology. Psychology is all about what’s going on in your neurons – which ultimately all comes down to chemistry. Watch this video to learn more about how to better engage your audience with your communication efforts.

Thanks for following MicroComms!

Thanks for following my adventures as a science writer and business owner and for your nice comments and replies. If you want to discuss anything about science communication or microbiology or a mix of these two, let me know in the comment section below or send me an email.

The post A new month at MicroComms appeared first on MicrobialCommunications.

One important aspect you need to pay attention to when writing your scientific article is the choice of verbs. Verbs are the most powerful part of every sentence. They tell the reader about the action that the key player of a sentence goes through and thus move a story forward.

And yet, in academic writing, many try to avoid using verbs or substitute them with complex constructs. Unfortunately, these often clutter sentences and do not help the reader understand their key messages.

Here, we will look at four basic principles of how you can declutter your science writing articles by improving your verb choice.

Use active voice

To tell your reader that something actually happened (either in the lab or in the system that you are working in), use active voice. Often, researchers are tempted to use passive voice (or should I say they tend to use passive voice?) to describe findings or states. But these phrases do not show any movement and if your language does not move, your reader won’t either.

By using active voice, you tell your reader that the main player does something actively. It moves a story forward by showing that something actually happened.

Also, sentences get shorter by using active voice. Instead of saying that “something is done by someone”, active voice is brief: “someone does something”. So, yes to active voice to declutter your sentences!

For example, commonly written in scientific publications: “Bacterial lipid transporters are used as a mechanism for membrane growth”. This sentence does not have a main player and no real action other than “something is used”. This sentence only states a fact.

How could we improve this sentence to make it more accessible?

You could write in active voice: “Bacteria use lipid transporters to grow their membranes”. Now, this sentence has the main player (bacteria) and they do something (use lipid transporters). This moves a story forward because something happens. Yet, the content is the same as in the first sentence.

Keep the subject and the verb together

In a sentence you generally want to convey the message of someone DOES something (yay active voice!). In this case, your someone is the subject and the action of doing something is the verb.

To efficiently give your reader this information, make sure that your subject and your verb are close together in a sentence. If you split the subject and the action, your reader will have to go through extra information before finding out what actually happens.

For example, look at the sentence “A transcription factor of the nitrogen-fixing soybean endosymbiont Bradyrhizobium japonicum, which responds to the intracellular oxygen concentration, undergoes Clp-mediated regulated proteolysis.” Here, the subject is “a transcription factor” and the action is “undergoes proteolysis”.

Can you see how much information your reader has to read through before getting to the key verb and thus the key message of this sentence? So, keep your subject together with your verb and add all the information afterward. Maybe even split up the sentences to highlight each piece of information.

So, better to write: “The nitrogen-fixing soybean endosymbiont Bradyrhizobium japonicum produces a transcription factor that responds to the intracellular oxygen concentration. This transcription factor also undergoes Clp-mediated regulated proteolysis.” Easier to skim through and understand the two pieces of information.

Avoid nominalisations

Similarly, nominalisations often clutter sentence structures and extend them for no reason. It is better to be clear and brief about the action in a sentence. Instead of saying “make a decision” or “give consideration to”, use the direct verbs: “decide” or “consider”. This is a lot shorter and direct.

For example, often researchers use complicated structures like these: “The transport of the chelator-nutrient complexes into bacterial cells is mediated by TonB-dependent transporters (TBDTs) located at the outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria.”

It would be a lot clearer to write “TonB-dependent transporters (TBDTs) are located at the outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria and they transport chelator-nutrient complexes into bacterial cells.”

Now, we still have a passive voice construct (are located), but it is immediately clear WHAT is located where. Plus, your reader will now better understand that TBTDs transport something. This fact did not become clear in the first example because the authors used a nominalisation (transport is mediated) and even separated it by several other words.

Use powerful action verbs

Don’t state negative facts, but rather say what is happening or did happen. This – again – moves a story forward instead of saying how your story did not develop. Otherwise, it will get too confusing for the reader to understand what happened and what did not.

For example, by telling your reader “bacteria did not survive”, they will not understand what actually happened. If bacteria did not survive, what else happened to them?

Here, it is better to write “bacteria died” because now we have one main player (bacteria) and one action (died). Plus, this phrase is a lot shorter while the content is still the same.

Improve your verb choice in science writing

Here, you have four principles of how to choose a better verb in your science writing projects. By following these points, you will help your reader understand your written texts and your key message.

Like this, you will make your science more accessible to everyone – both to scientists and non-scientists.
So, now when editing your texts, pay attention to all the verbs you use in each sentence. Make sure they are clear and powerful action verbs and you don’t use any complex cluttering constructs.

Have you tried these points? Did they work for you? Let us know in the comments below!

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