Lecture 3 Communication

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Lecture 3 Communication
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Three points to be made in this lecture

• Science is a public enterprise. There is no
  science without communication.
• Writing is self-presentation
• Good writing follows from some simple guidelines.

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Science is a public enterprise

• Communication is important for two reasons

• Pollination
• Improve efficiency by avoiding wasted effort

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Writing is self-presentation

• Practice good writing in your emails to
  professors and others.
• Avoid spelling and grammar errors
• Include all relevant information, such as course
  number and your name
• Be clear about your question or concern

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Writing is self-presentation

• You will be judged on the basis of what you
  write. Publishing leads to

• credit for your work
• access to the Invisible College
• jobs
• influence
• research grants

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Writing is self-presentation

• Neatness indicates care
• It suggests the project was worth your best
  effort.

• Dont give busy people a reason to ignore you.
• If you do, theyll take it.

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Writing is self-presentation

• You care about how you appear in person

• Care also about how you appear in writing.

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Effective writing guidelines

• Know your audience
• Identify your purpose for the reader
• Write clearly
• Be interesting
• Be concise

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Be careful in your choice of words

• Avoid local slang specific to your culture
• Avoid emotion-laden words

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Be careful in your choice of words

• Avoid words that inappropriately exclude segments
  of the population (e.g., use human race instead
  of man)

• Respect group preferences in naming (e.g., Asian,
  not Oriental)

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Three ways to present your work

• Written reports
• peer-reviewed, thus the official record of what
  we know.
• written reports are archival

• considerable delay before available
• use APA format (see text pp. 102 106).

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APA Format purpose of each section

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
• Participants Materials Apparatus

• Design
• Results
• Discussion
• References Figures

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Three ways to present your work

• Posters
• combine oral and written forms
• prepared text presented on poster scientist
  stands by poster to talk with anyone interested
  in the work.

• Oral presentations
• Fast propagation of results
• Less competition than with poster

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Review

• Science is a public, co-operative enterprise.
  Communication is essential.

• Writing is self-presentation. If you take care
  over your appearance (or even if you dont!) take
  care over your writing.
• Write carefully, grammatically, clearly. Say what
  you mean.