June 5, 2020 — Published by Ema Pavlovic
Your research is finally ready to be published in a reputable journal? Congratulations! You worked so hard on it and invested a lot of time to come to this step. Let’s not forget that the research publication is not the end of the process, but the beginning of another.
Did you know that global scientific output doubles every nine years? That means that many published papers will never even be read, nor cited. So how can you prevent your research publication from this scenario?
Remember the reason why you are publishing: to share the knowledge with the world. It might be obvious, but one of the main goals of science is to explain how the world is working, to other human fellows. That is why it is crucial for scientists to disseminate their research to the world.
While you wait for the publication of your research, you could invest some time to plan its dissemination. Otherwise the world won't know about your research findings.
A lot of scientists tend to underestimate the importance of science communication and dissemination of their research. Communication is a real thing to gain reputation, citation numbers and therefore chances to get grants, as well as a non-negligible boost in your personal career.
Scientific finding dissemination is even more relevant when it comes to public-funded research. Because these projects are funded with public money, the public has the right to know about it. That’s why a dissemination plan is now often required when submitting project proposals or applying for a grant.
If you are stuck with the ideas of how and where to disseminate your research findings after publishing, this article might help you out. You will find dissemination and communication tips and advice from science communicators that can help shed light on your scientific expertise.
Think before disseminating your research
For this article, we interviewed some of the experts in science communication, to provide you with the most reliable advice. One of the experts is Dr. Danny Kingsley, a scholarly communication consultant and a visiting fellow at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.
We spoke with Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová, chemist turned professional science communicator and Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò, the coordinator of scholarly communication at BIREME, a specialized Center of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization in São Paulo. Daisy Shearer, experimental physicist and spintronics researcher at the University of Surrey also shared her point of view with us. Many thanks to them for sharing their experience.
Publishing your research “is not the end of the line, but the beginning instead,” Dr. Danny Kingsley emphasises. The first thing to consider is making the paper open access. “If you published in an open access journal - your work is done. If you haven’t, then put a copy of your accepted manuscript into your university or subject repositories,” she advises.
If you are not sure what you are allowed to do, check out the How Can I Share It website. It gives you practical information about “where a journal article can be shared in line with the paper’s access and usage rights.”
Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò works closely with the SciELO journals, translating Portuguese to English versions. She mentions that many journals have established the practice of disseminating information on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet, the latest criteria for indexing journals in SciELO encourages authors to engage and use the potential of those platforms for disseminating their publication as well.
Thus, the most important questions you need answered before disseminating your research are:
- What is my key message?
Try to define in a sentence what should be retained. The sentence should summarise the bare minimal knowledge and conclusion from your hard work. Example: “Obesity is correlated with sugar consumption and it is a major threat for public health.”
- What is my targeted audience?
Try to imagine the perfect profile of the person you want to reach. It will be very frustrating if you wish to target as many people as possible but it will help to focus your efforts toward the right individuals. Example: “Policymakers involved in the health or food administrations.”
- Which media does this audience read or watch?
The answer of the previous question will help you focus on the right channels to target. Example: “Newspapers, emails, health and food association reports, Twitter and LinkedIn posts of influencers (including lobbyists).”
When you have those questions answered, it will be much easier to focus on the following steps.
1. Repackaging your research in different content forms
Different audiences prefer different media. Different media favours different content forms. That’s why it is important to think about the ways you can repackage your research publication. It will help you find the right content for each channel, maximizing the reach and engagement of your audience.
You wouldn’t listen to a reading of your research publication on the radio, or watch the same static scene for a TV report, right? That’s why you also need to think about what are the best options of “repackaging” your research. Adjust it accordingly to the audience and channel with which you want to reach them.
We can divide content in three different categories.
Textual:
Text is still the basic form of content, both in new and traditional media. Think about your publication title and the summary of it. What is the key message you want to share? With whom? Adjust it to the audience you want to reach and to the media you want to use to do so.
Remember to adjust the language as well. Overly-used scientific terms and jargonism are often one of the key reasons why public trust in science is decreasing over the last couple of years. “Writing about science in an understandable way is translating, not dumbing it down,” says Dr. Danny Kingsley, stressing how important it is for scientists to adopt this perspective.
“The easiest way of making your text more readable is to check your sentences and find commas in it. IDecide if it can be a full stop instead,” she suggests. “The other thing is to use shorter words. In English that means using the Germanic version instead of the Latin derivative of the word. For example, say ‘chew’ instead of ‘masticate’,” Dr. Kingsley advises.
“Sometimes we like to lock ourselves in the ivory tower and talk scientific terms, using very technical language - this will not reach the general public in the right way,” agrees Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová, chemist turned professional science communicator.
“When writing a blog, especially if you’re new to it, a readability index tool can be really helpful. It will help you get the sense whether or not what you’re writing about is understandable,” Dr. Danny Kingsley shares her writing advice.
Luckily, there are free online tools which can assist you with the readability index of your text. They can help you practice writing in a more understandable way. Hemingway Editor is one of them. There are also specialised programmes such as Kudos, which helps you “write about your work in an understandable way and then track it. Not all institutions have it, but it’s worth checking it,” concludes Dr. Danny Kingsley.
Last, but not least: don’t forget the importance of a good headline. “It shouldn’t be the same as your research publication title. It should be short and attractive to grab the attention of the audience,” Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò suggests.
This infographic is based on the experience in dissemination of the Labs Explorer’s team. It could help you with ideas of turning your research publication into different textual forms such as blog posts or an article for a website, summary of it or a press release for media.
Visual:
Did you know that the human brain processes visual information 60 000 times faster than text
? That’s why you should consider options of turning your research in a visual form.
Infographics and posters are always a good idea. There are many free online tools, such as Canvathat can help you with designing them. Usually they already have a lot of templates that can inspire you.
Creating a presentation that can be uploaded on SlideShare is also a good idea, as you will have to use it during the conferences anyways. And remember - a picture is worth a thousand words.
Video:
Because people are naturally responsive to movement, they react better to a video than to a plain text. Videos evoke emotions much better than any other form, making a bigger impact on people. Try understanding where your audience comes from: how they feel about your research topic, what are their concerns and how you can empathize with them?
Another important thing to have in mind is that video is a type of content that can be shared on many different channels. Especially on social media platforms, video is the best performing type of content. Even during events, starting your presentation with a video is also a great way to engage with the audience. There are different types of videos you can produce to increase the visibility of your research publication. Those can be explainer videos, interviews, short documentaries.If you wish to get a professional outcome, good news is that there are specialised companies who can do it for you and bring your research to another level. For example, take a look at Science Explainers. Their team of experts is dedicated to turning your research into a 2-minute animated video. After filling the project brief, the journalist will interview you, write the script and storyboard which you need to approve and edit the video until you're happy with it. Plus, you get dissemination advice for it. Sounds great, right?
Video: Science Explainers: How it works
Another option for those who don’t have a problem to be in front of the camera comes from the Latest Thinking
. This company offers video production format as a means of reaching out scientific audiences beside peers. Their team takes care of the caption and the interviews can help you with “trivialization” of your work, film you talking about it and host the video on their platform.
2. Reach out to your press office
Your research publication is definitely newsworthy. Having your research paper covered in traditional media such as newspapers or magazines, TV and radio is still a good way to reach the broader audience.
Most universities and companies have public relations departments whose role is to disseminate and communicate news.
“[Press offices] are always looking for stories. Having a statement about why your research matters and tying it to the current news, that’s going to ‘sell’ [your publication] to them,” says Dr. Danny Kingsley. “They might invest some time and energy into it. They might interview you and write a press release, take pictures etc. If you manage to make them engaged, then they might do some work on your behalf, because they always need the material,” she concludes.
Establishing a good relationship with your press office might help you reach out to the traditional media. They have the contacts and are able to make sure your research is credibly transmitted to the media. Like that, you are sure to leave no room for misinterpretation of your research and to prevent misinformation about it.
Keep in mind that journalists work on brief deadlines. “If you want to make yourself available for expertise commenting or similar, react quickly and call them back because they might call someone else instead,
” says Dr. Danny Kingsley.
3. Make the most out of your online presence
“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is ‘how well we do it’, “ states Erik Qualman, the author of the book Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Now that you have your research “repackaged” in different content forms, you are ready to share it on social media.
There are different strategies of doing it, depending on the best time to post on which social media and which type of content performs better where. We have prepared some infographics you will find below that could help you choose which type of content performs better on which social media.
To maximize the reach and impact of your publication, you should already have created profiles on different social media and scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs). They are the number one means of effective communication because they make it possible to reach the broadest audiences.
According to the Springer Nature's survey from 2017, conducted on 3 000 researchers from science, technology and mathematics fields and humanities and social sciences, more than 95% of them used social media and SCNs for professional purposes.
Thing to have in mind is that you need to be active on social media - connecting with people and participating in discussions, adding them to your network to increase the number of your followers. The bigger your network is, the chances of increasing your research publication impact are higher. Here we will explore different social media channels that can help you to shed light on your latest research publication.
Register for a persistent identifier
To track the online activity around your publication, it is necessary to have your own Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or persistent identifier. It is usually provided by journal editors at the publication of your paper. When you have it, include it in all the posts and materials planned for dissemination of your research publication.
Why? “Because a persistent identifier means it can be picked up by Altmetric. It is the primary thing we use to look for references. If you are able to use Altmetric to track what happens, you might find that everything you put on Twitter is ignored, but when you put something on ResearchGate you get a huge engagement. Assessing the value of different avenues is really helpful,” says Dr. Danny Kingsley.
The Altmetric Explorer is a tool that tracks online mentions beyond citations. It includes mentions on Twitter, Wikipedia, press releases, policy documents and more. It can show immediately who discusses your research and on which social media platform. This tool helps identify people who engage with your research and on which social media platforms. Find out more about Altmetric, tools for tracking your online presence
and impact of your research in our previous article.
Keep your social media profiles and contact information updated
It is important that your social media profiles are up to date. According to the mentioned survey from Springer Nature, 68% of researchers use the SCNs primarily for maintaining them in case someone wants to get in touch with them.
As a scientist, you are probably spending a lot of your time in a lab or working outside of the office. Because of that, people might have troubles reaching out to you by phone. Dr. Kingsley emphasises the importance of adjusting your voice machine messages with accurate information about your availability. While working as a journalist, she often found out from administrative officers that the scientist she had been trying to get in touch with, was on a sabbatical year. The lesson is: include this information in your voice message and keep your profiles updated.
Get engagement with your profile on ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, Loop, Mendeley
One of the first online destinations to promote your research findings are the scholarly collaboration networks. They are places where communities of peers and colleagues in different fields are established. They allow researchers to connect, share and discuss information and open up for collaboration opportunities.
If you don’t have one already - create a profile on ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley, Loop and/or Google Scholar. It will allow you to engage in all the mentioned activities that will contribute to effective dissemination of your research publication, while enabling the option of tracking the number of your citations.
Benefit from the power of an active Twitter account
You probably heard it a thousand times already: every scientist should have a Twitter account. Why? Our article on Twitter and scientists will summarize the reasons why you would benefit from Twitter, as well as provide you with advice on how to use it to maximize the impact of your research dissemination.
Include the link to your latest research publication in your profile description, using hashtags relevant to your field and research topic so people can find you more easily. Storytelling techniques are especially useful when it comes to summing up years of research in such limited form.
“You can tweet about your scientific opinions. This will reach more people and will, maybe, be a source of the information which might convince them that vaccines, indeed, can protect their children,”
emphasises Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová. When tweeting about your research publication, she suggests to do it with a twist.
Ask yourself: “
What was the motivation for you to join science? As a result - here is my paper. What exactly did I do there, what were the methods, why is it important? What does this bring to the field, to society, to humankind? This can still be done in a single tweet. If you think about it, you “only” need 280 characters for that,” she concludes.
Do not forget your LinkedIn profile
If you are not already part of this professional networking service, you should definitely join today. LinkedIn profile serves basically as your online resume: you can list your education, describe and list your previous and current job positions, highlight your skills and accomplishments and - you can list your publications.
You can also write blog-like articles which can help you to engage with other professionals within your network, as well as to increase it. Another part of LinkedIn that is especially useful to scientists are the conversation groups dedicated to specific topics. For more tips on how to use their full potential, check out our article How to use groups on LinkedIn to grow your scientific network.
Use the potential of your Facebook account
Even if Facebook is considered as the most private-life social media, reserved for sharing your personal life, it can still be used to boost the visibility of your research publication. After all, you dedicated so much energy and time to it. Actually, even your family would be happy to understand what you do in the lab all day long.
As on LinkedIn, you can take advantage of numerous Facebook groups related to your research topic. Or other groups that could be interested in it. Another option to consider is creating a Facebook page dedicated to your research findings. If you have time, it could be used as an personalised news feed where you can share everything related to your research topic. From writing your own Facebook posts and notes, to sharing different sources of information related to your topic and different content - text, photo or video.
Scientists use Facebook as well for discovering new information. “I find it very interesting that by following journals on Facebook I don’t have to switch platforms to find both news from friends and family, but also science news as well,” Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò shares her experience of personalising the Facebook news feed. “Disseminating your research on social media such as Facebook brings science closer to people. Like that, they don’t have to search for information in specific journals because you can bring it to their newsfeed. Some scientists take seriously the job of bringing science to people, and we are grateful for that ” she concludes.
She mentions the Revista de Saúde Pública, an “inter and multidisciplinary, arbitrated and open access journal with mission to publish and disseminate scientific work products in the field of Public Health” as an example of good disseminating practice on Facebook that scientists can apply to: write a post explaining in few sentences why your research matters, what it brings to society, include relevant picture and add a link to the full article.
Explore the opportunities of other social media platforms: Instagram, Pinterest
According to the latest data from Statista: “More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide is aged 34 years or younger.” If your targeted audience is between 18 - 34 years old and if your research is visually appealing, Instagram might be an ideal platform to engage with them. That’s exactly how Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová started using it as the main platform for science communication five years ago.
“I just realised that even if my experiments were not working, they still looked pretty. I tried to snap a nice picture of 50 test tubes filled with yellow solutions and I named it “50 Shades of Yellow,” because those books were very popular back then,” Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová shares how she began using this social media platform. Today she has more than 30k followers on Instagram.
Instagram is also the favorite science communication platform for Daisy Shearer, an experimental physicist and spintronics researcher at the University of Surrey. She is using it to talk about a quantum physics concept or sharing writing techniques.
Thing that surprises her the most is the feedback she gets from other users: “I’m always shocked at how many people find my work interesting. There are often really insightful questions from people which mean I have to re-contextualise what I’m doing or explain things in a different way. It’s really helped me gain a much deeper understanding of what I do and also to build confidence for when I am speaking to colleagues about my work,” Daisy Shearer concludes.
Thus, you should be very careful about licensing issues, if you plan to use Instagram for sharing data related to your research paper. “If you got images that kind of sell your work, you need to know who owns those images. If they have been used in the paper, you might not be able to use them actually for that purpose or you might need to get permission from your publisher. And if you’re using some of the images that are not used in the article, you might want to make sure they are licensed the way you want them to be used. You can add Creative Commons license to it,” stresses Dr. Danny Kingsley.
Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová tried also to take advantage of other networks: “I even tried using Snapchat, which didn’t work that well. Because your content stays available only for 24 hours, so it’s not really searchable.” She uses all the other platforms for science communication, including YouTube. There she posts longer videos that she can post on Instagram TV feature (IG TV) later on. This is again evidence how well video can be used on different platforms because of their interoperability.
Sociologist Deborah Lupton wrote back in 2012 an article about the academic use of Pinterest. “As a visual bookmarking site, self-described as a ‘virtual pinboard’, Pinterest allows users to ‘pin’, or transfer digital images to an interest ‘board’, or webpage that they make themselves and give a title to,” she emphasised. The same as on Twitter, users can “repin” the image you posted, which means you can also reach broader audiences.
The feature she found particularly useful is the commentary box below each pinned image, allowing you to add text up to 500 characters. One of the advice she gave for promotion of the research article was to pin the cover of the journal and provide a short summary with the link to the online version of the article in the commentary box.
Sprout Social made a list of ideal length for every social media
posts you might want to check.
4. Contribute to Wikipedia
According to the study Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia by Douglas Hanley and Neil Thompson from 2018: “In the months after uploading it, an average new Wikipedia article in Chemistry is read tens of thousands times and causes changes to hundreds of related scientific journal articles.” That should be a good reason why you should consider including a mention to your publication on Wikipedia. You can fill in the missing gaps of published articles on the topic that is covered by your publication, enriching them with your citations and finding. Or create a new article on a missing topic if you feel confident enough.
Keep in mind that Wikipedia has its own rules for publishing
. No matter how small your contribution is, it will be reviewed by moderators. Make sure your text is compliant with the rules. For example, promotional content is strictly forbidden.
5. Blogging, vlogging and podcasts
Science blogs emerged at the beginning of 2000s and are still quite relevant today. According to the article by Eryn Brown and Chris Woolston Why science blogging still matters published on Nature in 2018, science blogs are a useful tool to share your knowledge to broader audiences.
Beside answering the main questions as “Why does this matter?” and “Why should anyone care about this research?” Dr. Danny Kingsley emphasises how helpful it is “to tie [the research] to things that have been happening in the news at the time.”
She is currently working on open access-related topics and open research and her hook is the relation between COVID-19 research and the urge for making it openly available. “If you can find any sort of a hook that relates to what’s been going on in the news at the moment, then that’s helpful. Having an explanation of what the research is about and why it matters to the general public is really important,” she concludes.
Beside its journals, SciELO runs a blog entitled SciELO in Perspective. “We are disseminating good science in a language that anybody can understand, which is important,” explains Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò who also writes articles for the blog.
Blogging about your research findings can help you practice the art of storytelling. You can use it in a more personal way, which can help you find a way to engage with your audience. Daisy Shearer has been blogging about her PhD journey, enjoying discussions in comments sections on her blog. She emphasises how “engaging people in a conversation is so important—science communication is a two-way street!”
She also creates videos for her YouTube channel, promoting them on her blog and Twitter. Her advice on research promoting is: “Try explaining your work in an easy to understand format, such as writing a blog post explaining it in a more conversational way without the dry academic writing style. This helps more people engage with your work and might even help you understand your own work a bit better.”
Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò mentioned virologist Atila Iamarino and his YouTube channels: his personal channel and the Nerdologia channel, dedicated to explaining scientific topics to lay audiences which has almost 3 million subscribers.
Video: Atila Iamarino's YouTube post
Science communicator Sam Illingworth has The Poetry of Science podcast, which is another option to consider, depending on your objectives and preferences. Today, the podcasts are becoming more and more popular because to produce a decent one you don’t have to buy expensive equipment - your laptop or phone microphone can be just enough to record it. To get more details about how to produce podcasts, Katherine Bassil, a neuroscience PhD student at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, shared her experience with podcasts
in the article published by Nature.
6. Take advantage of events
Let’s not forget the power of interpersonal communication. Check out the options for attending scientific conferences, seminars and courses related to your research topic. They are considered as an informal way of communicating science.
Events are an ideal opportunity for dissemination of your research and growing your networking. They are also a good reason to (re)activate your social media profiles. In our article on Twitter and scientists
you can find a detailed timeline for tweeting during events and when to do it.
Besides that, events are the perfect opportunity to promote your publication in an “old fashion” way. Bring printed copies of your research publication and include your contact information. Like that, you can give it to the people you met and make sure that they can contact you in the future. You can also bring other materials that can be used in the same way, such as printed brochures or leaflets.
7. Get creative
Above-mentioned tips are the most common ways to disseminate research publication. Of course, more creative ways of disseminating your research findings are also available. Below are a few examples that might inspire you to explore creative ways sharing your research.
Can you sum up your research in 3 minutes? Maybe you should try it. Be inspired by the Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT) which goal is to have the best thesis presented to the lay audience in such a short time. These kinds of events, including other science festivals such as Pint of Science, are a great way to spread the word about your research publication and to expand your network.
Image: Three Minute Thesis competition logo
If you love art, check out the Lifeology platform. It brings together scientists and artists to create content, adjusted to different audiences so you could reach them more easily.
How does poetry sound to you as a way of science communication? There are scientists such as Sam Illingworth who are dedicated to turning research into poetry. On his blog “The Poetry of Science”, Sam turns complex research into original poetic forms to initiate dialogue between scientists and lay audiences.
Natalie Sopinka, an aquatic scientist, discusses How Does Creativity Fit Into Science Communication?, mentioning different creative ways of science communication, which include dance, cartoons and comics.
You can also submit your research paper for a TED talk conference. Randall Munroe, physicist, author of the webcomic xkcd and the book What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions did a TED talk
. It is a great way of reaching broader audiences and an ideal opportunity to show your presentation and videos.
Try and see what works the best for you
There is no universal formula for effective science communication. The best is to figure out which media works the best for you, depending on your objectives, targeted audience and content you are the most confident with.
Make sure you engage in communication channels that are actually fitting your objective in terms of audience, message and efforts. Find the balance between time invested and the impact. If you want to invest extra effort but don’t have time for it: get help from your team and professionals such as Labs Explorer.
“There are thousands of ways we can help the society,” says Dr. Lilian Nassi Calò. “Disseminating your research is at least what you can do to pay back the public money your research has been funded with. Explain the results and what have scientists been doing in the lab, so the public can make their own informed decisions,” she concluded.
Dr. Martina Ribar Hestericová, advises to always remember one thing: to provide sources to your research, no matter which audience you target. This step is crucial for strengthening the public trust in science, preventing the spread of fake news and misinformation. “In these small things, if all of us try to do something, we could really change the world, if we do it correctly and with passion”, she concludes.