Consider this scenario. You’ve recently published a new academic paper. It’s effectively your baby. The months or years of experiments, analysis, frustration, toil and troubles are now distilled into a stellar research article which, in your opinion at least, changes the face of science as we know it. Great! Now you need to get the word out beyond the Ivory Tower of academia and journal articles. Time to brush up on your public relations and communications skills.
Press releases are important tools for communicating scientific findings and informing the public about the importance of scientific research. From a researcher’s point of view they are also essential currency for enhancing your research profile and ticking the public outreach box on your next grant proposal. So, from all perspectives, it’s important to get press releases right.
We had an excellent NERD club session recently with Thomas Deane, press officer for the faculty of engineering, maths and science at TCD. His tips sparked a great group discussion about the dos and don’ts of writing good, interesting and hopefully popular press releases. Here are some of his useful guidelines which will come in handy next time you’re faced with writing a press release.
1) Simplify!
Remember that you’re writing for a non-specialist audience. Simplify your message as much as possible. Keep cutting things out of the article until it’s clear and succinct. Eliminate jargon but if you do need to use a particular specialised term then make sure that it’s explained properly.
2) Focus on the key parts
You already had to condense your months or years of work into a single paper. Now you need to do it again for the press release. Choose one or two of the key findings from the paper and explain them clearly and concisely. If possible ask someone without a science background to read your article. If they can understand it and identify importance of the findings that you’re trying to publicise then it’s a good indication that you’re on the right track.
3) Be active!
For reasons best known to the Department of Education, in school I was taught that you should only ever write about scientific research in a passive voice; “the animal was weighed” rather than “I weighed the animal”. This early training was reversed when I reached college but there are still some researchers who are stuck in their passive ways. Don’t fall into the trap! Writing in the active voice is easier to read, more interesting and will save on your word count. Press releases should be clear and engaging – this is infinitely easier to achieve if you write in the first person, active voice.
4) Find useful analogies
Good analogies should be engaging and clear. They’re particularly useful for attracting the attention of your audience and for explaining complex ideas. It’s a fun and beneficial exercise to come with an analogy to describe your own research. Here’s some of ours; territoriality behaviour in badgers is like the fall of the Berlin wall (they don’t respect boundaries) and ecosystem stability is like a Jenga tower (remove some key pieces and the whole ecosystem collapses).
5) Focus on the big picture
Research is inevitably piecemeal. Instead of the big bathtub Eureka moments, most new scientific findings represent small steps of progress in niche research areas. However, every tiny step contributes to an overall bigger picture. When communicating the importance of your work to the media it’s important to frame your research in a wider context. Think about why your research matters, where it could lead and why people should find it interesting. Remember that journalists and editors are short on time and probably patience. Your press release needs to include clear reasons why your work is interesting and deserving of their attention. However, one caveat to remember is that you shouldn’t artificially over-inflate the importance of your research. Don’t claim that your new findings about Drosophila are going to save polar bears from climate change!
6) Include quotes and images
A good press release is a sales pitch. You need to excite and enthuse people about your research. Striking, unusual pictures and engaging, personal quotes will help to sell your message. If you include direct quotes and captivating pictures with your press release then it’s more likely to attract the interest of the journalists and editors who take up the story. To supplement printed quotes it’s a good idea to give your contact details and state that you’re available for interviews. The media success of Kevin Healy and Andrew Jacksons’ paper about time perception in animals last year is testimony to the benefits of good images and engaging interviews for selling a story (even if people add images which slightly misrepresent the paper!)
If you keep these considerations in mind they will undoubtedly improve your skills when it comes to putting together your next press release.
Go forth science communicators!
Author: Sive Finlay, sfinlay[at]tcd.ie, @SiveFinlay
Image Source: myteltek.com