Descriptive Transcript
music // Title card reads Back to Basic Toronto, 2014. Connie Kim. How to communicate science to a lay audience. Connie Kim, PhD, sits in the OHTN studio, speaking directly into the camera. An on-screen graphic identifies her affiliation as University of Toronto. Slides are superimposed on the frame as Kim speaks. Unless otherwise noted, the slides repeat the cocntent of her presentation in point form.
Connie Kim: Hi, my name’s Connie Kim, and I’m a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Rupert Kaul and Sharon Walmsley. In this short webinar, I’m going to discuss how to effectively present complex science to a lay audience for the OHTN’s Back to Basic conference.
Communication style and presentation design will be especially important at this conference, because Back to Basic will focus on helping basic scientists and clinical science researchers share their work to a wide range of audiences, including people living with HIV, clinicians, policymakers, and research funders.
So, being an effective communicator and learning how to speak science to a lay audience is something that I personally struggle with myself, and I think that the OHTN asked me to present on this topic not because that I’m the best candidate, or the best presenter, but because I believe that there is so much value in closing the gap between community and scientists. I hope that, through my own struggles, I can provide you with a few helpful, useful tips as you prepare your presentation for the OHTN conference.
So, why is there so much emphasis by the OHTN to really help scientists to communicate better to a lay audience? And, why is this communication skill so essential?
For your own career development, regardless of where you are, or where you’re headed in your career, whether it’s academia, government, or industry, effective communication skills are highly desired. The ability to convey a complicated message to an audience who has limited-to-a little understanding of your topic is difficult to do, and is very important and relevant to the real world. In reality of things, even within the science community, I think there’s very little or a small number of people who really directly understand your research. So, being able to speak to a wide range of audience will be beneficial for your own career. It can also be highly motivational for scientists. I know I’ve spent countless hours, and weeks, and months, working on a simple assay, and, sometimes, just being surrounded by other scientists can be a little bit demotivating, and it can make your research feel very small in the grand scheme of things.
However, conversing with people who are genuinely interested in your work, and who care about your research, can be highly motivating. And the knowledge that your research really can impact people’s lives, I think, is very motivating.
Kim’s slides display a digram in which “communication” is a central node connected to “career development,” “motivating,” “idea generating,” “new collaborations,” and “influence.”
Also, through bridging the gap between scientists and the community, and encouraging conversation between the two, you may really receive input that you never thought about. It can be idea generating. Scientists can often think a certain way, and community think a different way. So, just having a fresh breath of air, giving you new ideas can really help you generate new ideas. And I think it’s very important for scientists to share their research and share their ideas to community, but I think it’s very important for scientists to listen to community and understand what’s important for them.
It can also be important for establishing new collaborations. Effective communication may allow you to reach a wider range of scientists, or non-scientists, and can help you really disseminate your research to a broader audience. Through effective communication and knowledge translation, you can influence and make impact. You can change the thoughts of policymakers and funders, and to the HIV-positive community. And, I think the long-term goal of the OHTN is really to build a long-term relationship between community and scientists so that, as a team, we may be able to improve HIV research and HIV care.
So, I have a few things to consider before you start making your presentation. So, the first thing to consider is understanding who your audience is.
Kim’s slides display a pie graph in which non-scientists make up approximately 150 of the 200 registrants for the Back to Basic conference, and scientists make up approximately 50 of 200 registrants.
So, at this year’s OHTN conference, there are about 200 registrants and 75% of them are non-scientists. These include people living with HIV, frontline providers, clinicians, and policymakers and funders. And, for some of these individuals, this is their first time attending any kind of scientific conference. So, it’s really important that you cater your talk for this group. It’s also important to consider that these are all people who are spending their busy days, and taking their time to really understand your research, because they care and want to learn about your work. So, I think it’s very important for you to take the time to make sure that they understand what you’re trying to say.
Kim’s slides display a three-step flow chart containing a visual metaphor for how a presentation should be fleshed out at the 3, 7, and 10-minute mark. The first step in the flowchart is a human skeleton. The second step is a medical drawing depicting the muscules and tissue on the human body. The third step is a photo of Ryan Gosling in a tuxedo, posing on the red carpet at an industry event.
So, what I like to do, even before I start my presentation, is to think about the take-home message. You want to start with the core message and build on it. My best advice is to start very, very simple and to apply the three minute elevator pitch idea, where you should be able to sell your research idea in less than three minutes to any anybody, with a very diverse research background. And, as you build your research, you want to build from what is the most relevant to your research content, to support your core message. So, with about three minutes, you should have the very basic core message.
As you add time, maybe with seven minutes, you should add content, or supporting content, to beef it up. And then, finally, with about 10 — roughly about 10 minutes — you want to make sure that your presentation is fully polished and that there are no loose ends, and that it’s a complete presentation.
Kim’s slides display a diagram shaped like an hourglass. At the wide top of the hourglass, a label reads “why.” At the narrow middle of the hourglass, labels read “how” and “what.” At the wide bottom of the hourglass, a label reads “Next.” An arrow connects the label “next,” at the bottom of the hourglass to the label “Why” at the top. Along the lefthand side of the diagram, a second set of labels indicate that “Why” maps onto the introduction, rationale, and hypothesis portion of the talk. “How” corresponds to methods. “What” corresponds to results. “Next” corresponds to discussion.
So, when you’re thinking about your presentation, it’s really no different from what you’re used to. The scientific approach typically starts with introduction, your methods, the results, and ends with a conclusion. But, if we take a step back and really think about what those words mean, I think it may help you simplify the content. So, for your introduction, you really want to emphasize why did you do your research and why does it matter. Then, you want to narrow in on how and what you found, and end with what’s next; so what?
Especially for the OHTN community, I think it’s very important for you to really drill in why you did your research and why it’s so important, and finish with a very strong conclusion and what’s next, and really not to spend too much time on how your research was performed and what you found, because it can become a little bit difficult and full of scientific jargon.
Kim’s slides display a series of images depicting different types of building materials and foundations. The first image shows the Three Little Pics standing outside of houses made of straw, sticks, and bricks, respectively. In the final image, the Big Bad Wolf from the story attempts to blow down the straw house.
So, the beginning of your presentation, or the introduction, should grasp your audience’s attention and prep them for what is about to come. You should try to have your audience understand why you did your research and why it’s important to them. You want to start your introduction by gaining their attention and really telling them a story about why you did your research. You might want to share why you’re passionate about it, and why you spent countless hours spending time on this. You want to start with a larger picture idea of what your research topic was, and then zooming in to your specific research topic.
You next want to educate your audience on the important and relevant information that’s going to help them understand your core message. What does the current literature say? And, really, it’s very important for you to only select the relevant information to your key message. I often find that showing a model or a diagram, if you can, of current knowledge can be very helpful, and it can be easy for you to refer to it later on in your presentation.
And, lastly, when you’re stating your research rationale, or your research hypothesis, you need to say this in a very clear and effective way for your audience. Often, the scientific hypothesis is not comprehensible for a lay audience. So, you really want to tie your scientific hypothesis into the larger context of how it relates to people living with HIV.
For your methods section, if you were involved in a clinical study, you want to talk about how your participants were recruited, and who is included and who is excluded. You want to avoid unnecessary scientific jargon that your audience will not understand and this means leaving out any scientific methodology that’s not going to help your audience. You want to focus on what the assay measured and how that relates to your core message, instead of how the assay functioned. And you also want to only present methods that’s really going to help you demonstrate your results in the subsequent slides.
So, for your results section, you really want to focus in and present only relevant data for your core message. I think this can be quite difficult for many scientists, because we spend countless hours generating data, and it’s really difficult to pick a few figures or a few tables that really reflect a minor part of what we do. However, sticking to your core message, it will be very important for you to select a few figures or few tables that really help convey your core message. When you’re using figures or tables, it’s very important for you to go through them in detail so that everybody can understand. If you’re using figures, I would select one or two figures and really carefully explain what the axes mean, and how this ties in with your core message. Also, tables where you can’t read numbers or the font should be simplified so that people only really look at what is relevant and important to your core message. And, if you have a multiple results slide, I would say it’s very important for you to summarize what you are showing after each result suction. And, if you can, relate the previous results to your next and make it a nice flowing story.
And finally, for your conclusions, or what’s next slide, summarize your key findings, and always tie in your research findings to your research question. The ending is just as important as the beginning. You want to finish strong and bring your presentation to a full circle. Just as you made effort to explain at the beginning why your audience should care about your research, you want them to leave with thinking that you adequately addressed your research question. In order to do so, you want to summarize your key research findings and answer your initial research question.
If you initially — if you used a diagram in the beginning, it’s nice to show an updated version of that diagram with where your research fits in. You also want to address what was new about your research, and how does this fit into the current literature, and what’s next? You also want to state any research limitations that’s going to be relevant for the OHTN conference. And, finally, and most importantly, how does your research impact clinical care and the daily lives of people living with HIV? I think this is a very difficult question for a lot of scientists to address, but if you really think about the big picture again, and where your core message fits in, you may be able to find an answer.
So, I have several tips that I’ve listed for you to consider before you generate your presentation and practice your talk. The most important one that I would say is to practice your talk with an appropriate person who is reflective of the OHTN audience. And what I would do is do a mock run of your presentation, and ask them to summarize or regurgitate what you’ve said, and that should give you a brief, general idea of how much they understood of your presentation. Receive their feedback and ask them what was difficult for them to understand, and really keep your core message in mind, and tone your message down, and simplify. It’s also important for you to have them ask you some questions, and then ask them to give you feedback on your response. Because, for your Q&A session, this will be important.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this short webinar, and I hope I’ve equipped you with a few skills to improve your presentation for the OHTN conference, and I hope to see you there.
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