Stand up for Science: Practical Approaches to Discussing Science that Matters

Exercise 1: Write a Draft 4-8 Sentence Story

Write a draft STEM story, referring to your Central Message and Supporting Ideas and using the And, But, Therefore structure. These stories will be approximately 4-8 sentences long (4 sentences for a story about a research question, and 8 sentences for a story about a research question with it's findings or results.) Self-reflect on if your story conveys your Central Message. Further self-reflect and ask yourself, is your story linear and logical? Is it complete? Is it compelling and engaging? After you’ve finished drafting a 4-8 sentence story, save a copy, including information about your target audience.

Exercise 2: Check Your Jargon Use in Your Draft Story

As we discussed during the Skill 1 content, language use - and particularly the presence or absence of jargon - is very important for your audience’s understanding. In this exercise, take the 4-8 sentence story you drafted and check it for jargon. You can do this by using the “De-Jargonizer” at www.scienceandpublic.com, or you can check the Flesch-Kincaid reading level in Microsoft Word. If either of these tools indicate that you’re using lots of jargon, try revising the 4-8 sentence story to convey the same ideas using plain language. (Note: it can be helpful to use analogies, metaphors, and visual imagery to explain complex or abstract concepts.)

After you’re finished revising your 4-8 sentence story to reduce your jargon use, you can either submit the story as-written to the Feedback Forum, or you can explore the what our Expert Voices have to say about how to make stories compelling for particular audiences in the ‘Deep-Dive’ section. If you take the Deep-Dive,’ we encourage you to self-reflect on what you learned and revise your story to better fit your audience.