I often hear from researchers asking how they can do better with their communication tasks, whether it’s grant writing, publishing journal articles, or preparing students for their presentations. These questions led me to developing my 2019 APS DFD Invited Talk, “Adopting a communication lifestyle,” which I’ve now expanded in a new open access article in Physical Review Fluids.
In it, I break down the science communication process and recommend exercises and activities to help students and researchers with every step of communicating scientific material. Struggling to get words on a page? Try freewriting exercises. Feel like you’re completely rewriting every sentence your co-authors give you? Well, there’s recommendations for that, too!
Since this paper was aimed at fluid dynamics researchers, there are examples of good communication and practices from that field, but most of the advice in the paper (and many of the references cited) are applicable throughout STEM fields. To that end, I’ve made the article freely available to all readers; there’s no paywall, so check it out and let me know what you think. Are you looking forward to trying some of these activities yourself?