A New Class Presented By SpreadingScience

Being able to communicate science is an incredibly important skill in today’s connected world.

Communicate! Learning to Disseminate Science

We have classes for everyone – from one hour to a week.
A course can be customized to your needs.

Interested in attending? Email us to be put on the waiting list for the next session in Seattle.

Researchers today need to not only have expertise in their field of study, they also must have a strong understanding of how to effectively communicate their results to a wider range of audiences than ever before. This class will delve into techniques and approaches that help make it easier to get your point across.

Papers. Presentations, Posters. Grants. The traditional approaches.

Most researchers learn how to write effective papers or deliver informative presentations by trial and error. Usually a lot of error. But there are some quite different approaches that must be used depending on the mode of presentation if one wants the intended audience to understand.

Email. Wikis. Blogs. New technologies proliferate.

So-called Web 2.0 technologies present entirely new methods for disseminating information, each with its own benefits. In fact, research presentations today are seldom the monologues that they used to be. Dialogues and collaborations require an entirely new set of tools. Understanding the strengths of each tool will allow researchers to more effectively accelerate the flow of information, either  inside or outside their labs.

Modifying the approach for different audiences.

Presenting research today involves so much more than simply writing for one’s peers. Audiences that a researcher will be expected to present their work to now include a much larger range of expertise. Gaining insights into how to effectively modify a presentation is an important skill for today’s researchers.

Craft a course for your own needs.

These are some topics that can be discussed, depending on the focus or length of time for  available. This is not a course dealing with general presentation skills given by someone with a business background. It is for scientists and presented by a scientist. Richard Gayle has been working as a researcher for over 25 years, in academia and in business. He has seen what works, and what does not, whether standing at a lectern or hunched over a terminal.

This class will help you understand the different needs of a variety of presentation formats. You will become familiar with some quite simple changes that can enhance your work as well as some more subtle approaches. We can examine some aspects of cognitive psychology or the proper use of fonts in presentations. It all depends on just what you wish to learn and how much time you have learn it.

Our classes range from one hour to a full week, with one day and half day workshops in between. Even after the one hour class, you will have a better idea of how to enhance the information flow of your work. The full week will include much greater emphasis on specific presentation needs, along with a fuller understanding of how a community responds to innovative information.