I feel your eyes burning
Down to my bones
But I see the truth now
I've never been more alone
I run through the trees as fast as I can
I fall to my knees and I find a place to land
Whisper in the moonlight, stop and I freeze
See into the shadows, taking over me
I'm walking on a very quiet road
I see the truth now
I'm running through
the trees as fast as I can
I fall to my knees and I find a place to land
Whisper in the moonlight, stop and I freeze
root of my sort of love for the arts, so I kept it going as best I could in the form of creative
writing, journalism, and some more filmmaking in between. And then I went on to get a master's and
PhD in biological anthropology, and currently I am a forensic anthropologist working for
SNA International in support of the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency in Nebraska.
Sounds very interesting. So let me ask you, since we are talking about scientific communication,
what is scientific communication? What is it to you?
That I think is probably the biggest question because it encompasses a lot of things, and
it's really at the heart of it relaying scientific information, and the form you want to relay that
information in is really where you get into the heart of the question. To me, it combines two
areas. One is scientific literacy, your understanding of science, your ability to
communicate it, to digest it, receive it, and disseminate it, and also media literacy,
which is your ability to take in and understand the nuances of communication styles,
whether it's writing, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, your ability to receive
that information, understand the format that it's coming in, and how you can parse through
that information to really get to what is solid information, what you think is maybe kind of wacky
stuff that you should maybe be ignoring, and get to the heart of the matter in understanding.
Yeah. Stephanie, what do you think?
Yeah. So I'll just preface this for this entire podcast. I'm a little sick, so my voice sounds a
little funny, so please bear with me, everyone. But yeah, so Laura and I kind of worked together
as, if y'all remember, I also work for SNA International, and she had given us a presentation
at work about scientific communication. And so I just found it so fascinating, because I know for
myself that it's something that I actively try to work on, and always try to better myself. And
listening to her presentation just made it so clear that I had so much to learn, and I thought
that maybe everyone else had those questions kind of burning in their minds as well, which is why
we reached out and wanted her to be our first guest as our podcast to try to get to the heart
to try to broaden some perspective a little bit, so it's not always just us rambling. It's
we get a couple other voices as well. And so I guess my idea behind science communication,
for sure, is all of what Laura had said as well. But also, when I try to think about my definition
for science communication, I tend to try to always think about what did I miss out
when science was communicated to me, and try to always keep that in mind as well. Because it is,
yes, like she was saying, like the literacy and understanding, not only the science, but I find
a lot of times, sometimes when people understand the science so well, they have a hard time
communicating it, because like, they just get it to the nth degree. And you're sitting there as the
layperson being like, what just happened? I'm so lost. And so for me, that was an aspect of science
communication that I always try to keep in mind of like, what didn't I know when I was thinking
about this topic, or when this topic was taught to me. And I guess, which kind of leads into my
first question for Laura is like, most science communication really does have to do with like,
speaking to your audience in a way that they understand. In what ways do you think,
the field as a whole kind of does this well? And what ways do you think that,
we might have a long way to improve upon? That's a great question. I think you really
hit the nail on the head in that the first rule of scientific communication is knowing your audience.
And knowing your audience does not just mean knowing who you're speaking to, but how to speak
with them. You want to meet them at their level, but also push them to grow a little bit. You don't
want to talk down to people ever. You want to show them the avenues of where you could be taking that
conversation past where they started. And in knowing your audience, you have to know language
to use to communicate with that audience. You don't want to get too in the weeds with
a specific vocabulary, especially in science, that's a problem. And that's something I think we don't
do super well. I think we have sort of two speeds. One is lay speak, where we use your elbow and
your hips instead of talking about the specific bones involved. Or we have science speak, where
we talk about the specific bones involved. And we have nothing in between. And so we're either
relying on people knowing nothing or knowing everything. So one of our problems in the field
is reaching that audience that's in between or moving one audience from one end of the spectrum
to another. Because I do think communication runs both ways, not just from ignorance to knowledge,
but also knowledge to other types of knowledge. Everyone is moving in some direction constantly.
So one of the things we could do better is hitting those audiences in between
and learning to communicate in different ways. Science is really either verbally taught
in a classroom, or its major mode of communication is through writing in scientific journals,
articles. And those hit certain audiences, and they don't hit any of the other ones in between.
It's sort of gatekeeping science in a lot of journals that people don't have access to,
or have inaccessible language. And then gatekeeping it also in the form of having to be a part of
higher education to be a part of the conversation. So there's a lot of ways to communicate in between.
One, you are doing perfectly well today in the form of a podcast. That's something that hits a
lot of audiences. People can join in a sort of conversational mode, which is really helpful
for a lot of people to get interested in topics and feel like they can be accessing the information
and know where to go with it from there, not just being talked at, but talked with.
Then there's a lot of different new media. YouTube streaming, there's people who are talking to
audiences more frequently and at a more accessible level. Filmmaking, other forms of audio,
writing in a more creative format is something I think we could really be diving into that we don't.
So we have a sort of rigid approach to scientific communication now, and those are the areas
where I think we have the most room to grow. But there are some things we are doing well.
One is I think, especially within forensics, we have a lot of interest. And we've kept it
interesting. We've kept it hot. We've kept people wanting more. So that eagerness and driving up the
excitement in your audience is something that we are really good at. Maintaining it is something
we can work on a little bit more. But those are what I see as the major highlights and
disadvantages for our field.
I really appreciate that. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I don't know if Ashley or Jenna,
y'all have any more things that y'all have seen the field do well or not well.
Well, I mean, for me, the not well is in the language. And there's something that you brought
up, Stephanie, that I know I'm very guilty of. And that is my supervisor tends to beat me over
the head quite frequently when I write something. And she tells me, you know this. No one else does.
So you need to write it like no one else knows this. And that's something that I'm always guilty
of is I'll sort of start my paper at the middle and forget no one's been working 10 years on this
project other than me. So how am I supposed to make those minor steps in the beginning that I
leave out? How do I include those? So how do I make those steps?
How do I include those? So how do you overcome that in writing and in communication that sort of
starting the story from the middle?
That is a problem. I think there's two aspects to that that are important to consider. And I'm
wondering if you guys have experienced these things. First is that communication is not a one
call approach. The communicator needs to be conscious of who they are and who they're perceived
as. When you're a junior scientist, when you're younger in the field, you have to also take the
opportunity to prove yourself to a certain degree for the audience to take you seriously.
That's also true of certain minority representation in the field. A lot of people, whether it be female,
gender diverse, POC, there's a lot of different people who will have to unfortunately represent
themselves in a way that is taken seriously with authority. Because some of us aren't given
authority just for existing. And so in doing that, you have to remember that you are the expert on
what you're discussing. And how to communicate that well in a manner that's received well is
a big issue. Then you said starting the story in the middle. That's something that I have also
struggled with a lot. But my creative writing background, I think, was the most helpful way
for me to think that through in creating a narrative arc. I want to lead my audience
through the arc of a story and tell a story when I'm communicating things to them. Even if it's a
dry scientific matter, there's still a beginning, a middle, and an end. And I know where I want the
end to be. So even when I'm starting in the middle, I have a vision of where I want to get them to.
And that's the same place that I am. And so I have to remember, how did I get there?
How can I help lead my audience there? And I do write it out of order. I write where I want to be
at the end. I dive into the meat of the middle, all of the nitty gritty in between, parsing through
what's important for them to know, what's something that I can sort of gloss over and lead them in a
way. And then remembering where did I start? And how can I introduce something to somebody who's
starting in that place too? I can't forget where I started from. Otherwise, I'm not going to very
effectively bring somebody to where I ended up. Is that something that resonates? Is that something
that feels like, is how you approach communicating things too? Or is this a weird quirk that I'm
bringing in? No, I love that. I probably should start doing that. I didn't do, I guess I have a
very linear thought process, which I, so I'm always like, okay, where did I start? Where am I going?
And I like try to start from the beginning and just write the whole paper or the whole presentation
or whatever. But that it does make sense to kind of work backwards of like, knowing your end goal
helps you not have so much jumbleness, I guess, at the beginning. So that's, I mean, that makes me
think a lot about like, how I've definitely given presentations where I tend, like, I guess, a
critique of sometimes when I give presentations is I just like give a lot of information.
And it might be because I do start from the beginning to the end when like maybe the beginning
stuff doesn't, not all of it mattered, I guess, for that end point. So that's a really good,
you're gonna have to rethink how I do things. So do I actually. I mean, I'm like Stephanie,
I'm also very linear in the way I write. The way I tend to write is I'll go days, months, weeks,
no writing, no writing, no writing, and then I'll sit down and I'll write an entire journal article
in one sitting. And it's just, I start from the beginning and just once the words start coming
out, they start coming out and just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.
My brain goes so very differently. I have ADHD, so I tend to go in one direction and then beer off
sharply and then beer into another direction. I'm all over the place all the time. The one way that
I have tried to adapt is I'm really lucky to have a parent who I still live with who has a philosophy
degree. And she is really, really good at trying to get me back on track. I can get really excited
or obsessed with other topics as well and I'll like kind of go too far into it. And so she is
good at bringing me back and being like, okay, no, but what did you mean? And so I think it's,
that's a perk that I have that not everybody has access to, but I think that might help improve
the sciences if we were, I mean, it's always good to be multidisciplinary, but also in just sharing
the way that we write. And so I have my philosophy major mother read through my paper and tell me if
I've explained it to the point that she can at least follow what's going on,
even if it gets a little too sciencey. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that, if that,
if we think that might be a way to help or. I think so. I think, I think looking at our related
fields, our, our neighbors, our academic neighbors, if you will, is a great way to do this because we
are communicating to those people as well, hopefully, ideally. So how they communicate
or how they're receiving our information, like a parent would or any other person that, I mean,
they could come from, from any background and can tell you that didn't make sense to me or yeah,
that sounded really great to me or whatever in between, and give you some guidance on,
on how your communication is being received. I, I did my undergraduate thesis from a linguistics
perspective, looking at a journal article and the sections, you know, introduction, materials and
methods, results and conclusion discussion, and looking at the types of language were used in
these different sections and how it was received by our academic neighbors through the form of
people that were citing us outside of the field. And I looked at things like self-reference in the
form of pronouns like I and we in academic or scientific writing versus the sort of removed
third person approach and notice that there were trends in the introduction and the discussion
section where self-reference and a sort of first person approach was really appreciated, it seemed
by these, these other fields. And that's something that we're not taught in our field and it's not
something that is really promoted, I would say. Some people even might beat it out of you in your,
in your education. So you have to remember that your audience is more than your advisor,
your audience is more than the person who's giving you feedback on a specific presentation
that you gave and seeking that feedback from a variety of audiences because diversity is
really the thing that's informing what we do. That diversity will give you a better understanding of
how to adapt your brain, however it may work, into a form that other brains can receive,
more than just a single person.
No, I'm totally glad you said the thing about like first person and stuff like that because
my graduate thesis was talking about, you know, cognitive bias and like how the person has an
impact on not only the science itself but how it's communicated and all of those types of things.
And that was one thing I had to have a discussion with my entire committee to be like, I want my
entire thesis to be in first person because how can I talk about, you know, us as science
scientists having an impact on the science while trying to remove myself subsequently from that
science like that didn't make sense and like I had a long discussion and luckily they were very
receptive to that idea but it was, I know, having written some articles prior to not in first person
trying to write in first person was really difficult where you're like, it shouldn't be
this hard but I'm the one that did this thing but it really is because you're so used to reading
so many articles that are not written in that way and so you feel like, oh I'm not as scientific,
I'm not as, like I'm not writing as smart or whatever when in reality you're like, no,
I did these things that matter. So like, yeah, I just, I'm glad you said that.
It's more well received when you use personal pronouns?
In related fields, it was, the most highly cited articles had some sort of personal approach to
the introduction and discussion sections. So those were the areas where people, audiences were
interested in hearing your perspective. Materials and methods and results, they wanted sort of a
hard science classic approach. They wanted you to deliver information impartially, I suppose,
and sort of a traditional presentation but in the introduction they wanted to be told
some of your perspective to be led a little bit into your work and then in the discussion they
wanted to hear from what you specifically learned rather than just what you learned.
What you specifically learned rather than just regurgitating something as if it happened in front
of you and you just witnessed it but had no part in it. That's really fascinating. I feel like that
also would translate better in terms of forensics when you end up on the stand if you ever were a
witness that you do have to speak specifically to what you did or what you and your constituents did.
Yeah, that's really interesting. I feel like we're all just sitting there like, wow,
so much to think about, right? I guess kind of along those same topics but another question that
I was kind of thinking about when prepping for today's podcast was just like, what do you
find works best for you to prep for presentations or communication styles? Do you memorize your whole
speech or do you just have guiding points? I think probably to a certain extent everyone's a
little bit different but since you seem to be very good at this science communication,
I feel like we could learn a lot from how you do things.
That's very flattering of you to say. I consider myself a work in progress for sure but that work
in progress I guess is sort of my philosophy also. I consider it sort of a muscle that you need to
train and you need to constantly work at to build and that confidence or comfortableness in speaking
is something that you develop with time and practice. It's not something that, I mean maybe
there's some rare individuals that just are born with an innate ability to communicate but I think
for the most part the rest of us all have to really work at it. How you work at it is definitely
individualized. I think my approach is to be comfortable with the material enough that I can
speak off the cuff about it because you never know the direction a presentation is going to go. You
never know what kind of question you're going to be asked. That's not something you can script
but I definitely rely earlier on heavily on a script. I think when you're starting that's okay.
You need to practice. You need to get comfortable with moving through material and if you have to
read that's totally fine. When witnessing a presentation given by somebody that's completely
right off of a script 100% I don't look down on that in any way. I think that person has
taken the time to craft that script with their knowledge to make that into something that they
think is worth sharing and then delivering it rather than it being something that they're
not doing in real time. They've done it. They've done the work there and they're delivering it to
the best of their ability in that moment and so that's something I really appreciate and it's not
something I'll ever tell people that they shouldn't do. There's a lot of people who say oh you need to
memorize something. You need to go off script but I see no problem with using a script. I do like it
when it's a little more loosely organized. I think you should have points that you want to hit. You
should know the direction that you're going with. You should know your narrative arc, your beginning,
middle, and end but the way you're getting into the meat of those sections can be something a
little more creative, a little more interactive, something that you feel out with your audience in
real time that I do really love. So preparation is something you can't avoid. There's always going
to be some element to that. The question is do you want to prepare bullet points and let the rest
sort of naturally flow in between or do you want to prepare your whole script and be ready to move
off of it at any second because again you never know what kind of question you're going to get
but it's not something you can prep but you have to rely on your knowledge and know however you
think you can communicate that knowledge best and that can change from presentation to presentation.
There's some topics that you might have a lot of numbers that you have to deliver
and those things should be written out. I don't think anybody should be sitting down and memorizing.
I think it's a waste of time. I think there's more important things that you can be focused on.
Then concerning yourself and worrying through memorizing a bunch of statistics.
I think you can always rely on things like that to be scripted but when it comes down to the heart
of your presentation that's something that comes just from you. That comes from your personal
experience. That comes from your interest, your enthusiasm and those are things that will come out
whether you script it or not. So those things will always be present but again practicing
until you feel comfortable and you feel ready to share those aspects of your presentation
is all you can do at any stage. I would say and feel free Ashley and Jenna I know I keep asking
a bunch of questions so feel free to interrupt me at any point. Do you find prepping for a presentation
do you tend to do that on your own or do you give a fake presentation to a group of people
before you give the actual presentation? I know at work a while back from one of our mentorship
meeting things I think you had talked about giving like this was more for articles but I think it
works for presentations as well of giving them the opportunity to critique it in front of you
and you kind of just like listen. Do you mind talking more about that that way our audience
knows what I'm talking about? Then what you find that does well for you.
Yeah so that I call workshopping that comes from my creative writing background where we would put
together pieces of writing and you would distribute it to a group that you're workshopping it with.
They have the chance to read over it make any edits or suggestions that they're interested in
and then they have a conversation about it that you listen to but you don't participate in. So you
get an understanding of how your work is being received and what is hitting home with people,
what's not landing, what do people want more of, what are people less interested in and I find that
extremely valuable because your instinct is to sort of stick up for yourself in moments to be like no
no that's not what I meant no you're misunderstanding that or you know you get a little bit more
sensitive about aspects of your work but it's really great to step back and just hear how it's
being received because your intention can be x y or z but if people are reading it as something
completely different then your intention meant nothing there because it's just not how it's
being received and you have to remember to step outside of yourself and you have to be able to
and you have to remember to step outside of yourself in order to get that kind of information.
So workshopping is something that you can bring to any type of communication really it doesn't
have to just be writing although it's something that I think writing benefits very well from
because people can digest it in their own time first. A presentation can be done in a similar
style you can give a rough version of the presentation step back and let people tell you
those things you'll have to maybe guide them through it a little bit ask specifically what
worked what didn't what did you think of this what did you think of that but don't
don't lead them in that conversation receive the the natural information as much as you can
and take that for your next iteration. I don't often give full versions of a presentation
I sort of workshop ideas or aspects that I want to hit on and that's more conversational
and I like that approach. I think if you're feeling uncomfortable if it's your first
presentation that you're giving that would be a great time to give a rough draft and get some
feedback on it but as you get a little more familiar with the concept and how you want to
approach it then you can say to somebody oh I have this idea or I'm thinking about approaching it
this way I'm thinking about representing in a figure like this what do you think about that
does that tell you the thing that I'm trying to get you to know there or could I do that
differently what are you thinking about it sometimes I just hit and workshop little aspects
in between and I think that style of feedback is essential to any form of communication
presentations included is that something that you've ever done before?
For me no but it's something I'm definitely taking to my supervisor for her to include
when we have our lab meetings because what we do what I've done is the way I practice for a
presentation is I started off when I gave my first conference presentation I had a script
and I would go through it and I'd misaligned well fuck got to go back to that line
there's another one got to go back to that one and I wouldn't say it was a disaster but it felt like
one from my own internal perspective it felt like one so all the ones I've done since then
the way I tend to work it is I have my my powerpoint and I can see it on the computer there's my
powerpoint and I'm just off the cuff this is what I want to say and our supervisor God bless her
she will not let you do a presentation without having it go through the entire lab first which
is pretty good I like the workshop presentation I like the presentation I like the presentation
pretty good I like the workshop idea a little bit better so I'm going to bring that bring that to
her but the problem I have is I never give the same presentation twice it changes every single
time I give it because I'll sit there and all of a sudden you know what that's the point I want to
hit instead of that one that's a good a good sign of a presentation I think I think if even if you're
giving the same thing scripted the same way it's never going to be received as the same presentation
by two different audiences so your ability to play with that audience that that interplay that sort
of collaborative aspect of it knowing what you want to hit on in that particular moment what's
what the audience seems to be responding to that's a sign of an excellent presentation
I say I guess kind of talking about that audience aspect I know Ashley's kind of you know talk to us
about the audience of this podcast of you know a lot of y'all that are listening are either students
or you know people that are trying to kind of get into this field um not necessarily in the field
just yet though if you are please let us know uh-huh but like I think it's a good thing that we
have but like what types of uh I guess experiences do you think you wish you would have known
like I'm trying to figure out how I wanted to word that but like I know when I was an undergrad or
even in grad school like watching people give presentations at conferences or even my teacher
like lecturing at us where I was like oh my god they're so smart like they know what they're doing
but then like now kind of being in the field listening to my friends now giving presentations
of like kind of the anxiety before the presentation of like oh I don't want to mess up I don't want to
do these types of things um I guess just like to me that helped me kind of put myself in to that
world of like oh other people are also kind of feeling this like feeling essentially um for
giving presentations which is really nice to know that like you're not alone in that feeling um
but I guess did y'all do y'all also feel that way and has there been things that like helped
alleviate that like kind of anxiety um I know I naturally have anxiety so like probably only my
medication will ever alleviate that for me but like what types of I don't know tips and tricks
do you have to kind of like calm yourself down before a presentation or those types of things
I guess and this is open-ended to anyone but I do want to say I do want to hear everyone's answers
here but um I can distinctly remember an early presentation that I gave where I was shaking like
physically shaking while I was speaking and I couldn't stop myself it's just like a a bodily
reaction that I had no control over I could do deep breathing I could do whatever and it just
would not have helped the situation so after that I just realized you know some things are out of my
control it's going to happen can I still deliver the information sure so I'm going to focus on that
if I'm shaking if I lose my train of thought excuse me if I have to cough in the middle of what I'm
saying things are going to happen and I'm just going to roll with it so the more comfortable you
feel rolling with things as they come up the less of a problem they become because if you're just
ready and you know that they're going to happen and you've accepted that they're going to happen
then it's easier to deal with if you're trying to fight it constantly it's a losing battle and I
think even the most seasoned presenters still get anxious that's something that they may hide well
but never goes away I know a lot of people personally who take beta blockers before a
presentation so medication is not out of the question um I get nervous I sweat a lot I have
to specifically think about what outfit I'm going to wear because I have to plan for something that
I will not sweat through in a manner that everyone can see and actually one of the ways that I do
approach the anxiety of a presentation is I think about my outfit I put a lot of effort into planning
what I'm going to wear how do I want to physically present myself what sort of energy do I want to
give off and I put a lot of my time right before the presentation into that and that keeps me away
from you know getting into the weeds about every little detail that I could do differently and
getting super anxious about that I am an anxious person by nature so um I know that if I can distract
myself with something that's that's benefiting me in the end in the presentation then I'm going to
focus on those things what about you guys my very first poster that I ever gave um my friend literally
drug me to the q a session to give it because I was so anxious the answer was no not going just
not going it was the a b a's I believe they were in Knoxville but I'm not sure I think it was in
Knoxville and my friend literally had to physically drag me there and hold me while I did the q a
otherwise it was not happening but what really clicked for me I kept getting anxious at conferences
and you know no matter where it was I was really really anxious and then it clicked a few years ago
at an a a f s conference and I was standing up there and I just I kept saying to myself in my head
you're on par with everyone in this room instead of thinking oh my god there's there's all these
giants in the field right in front of me no you're on par with every single person in this room
calm down gave the presentation and ever since then that's how I do it is I look at the audience
if it's my students hey they're looking at me to to know this information and you do know it you
can give it if it's a conference you're on par with everybody in this room and that's that's how I
deal with things and that's really alleviated the the anxiety that I have with conferences
that's a great perspective yeah that imposter syndrome I mean we could probably have a whole
another two hour long podcast about imposter syndrome within the field for sure but I definitely
I get that of like having to remind yourself like you do know the stuff you're talking about it's
okay and I also find for myself and I obviously want to hear from Jenna too but I just like before
my brain forgets this is like reminding myself that like not knowing an answer is okay too
because I know like for undergrad and even grad school it was like a you know you're defending
your thesis you have to know the answer to everything like you can't be caught not knowing
but like you cannot know like and like it's better to just say you know I don't know the answer to
that let me find out for you and I'll get back to you rather than like making something up and being
wrong um and like I know that's helped me a little bit with my presentations of just being like
being able to say you know I don't know I really don't know the answer to that and being okay
with not knowing and that I know what I faced that resonates with me for sure one of my earlier
presentations that I gave I went through it fine felt like really good about it and then I got a
question at the end and the guy asked me about some very uh like minutiae statistics thing that I
just didn't know how to answer and I sat there for a second I thought about it like okay what can I
say about this how am I gonna figure out a way to talk my way through this and then I just said
forget it I leaned into the microphone and I said google it and end of question google's the winner
of all
I love that I don't know that I can directly speak to it I haven't spoken at conferences
but even in my academic speaking like when I'm giving a guest lecture or I'm like leading a
lecture in a course of some format the the preparing my outfit is so real the stress sweat is
so abundant um so that that is part of it is like that's it reduces one extra piece of of stress for
me is if I don't have to worry that I'm sweating through my outfit then it's like that's one
because I will I'll just keep piling them on like my brain will just run a thousand miles a minute
and come up with absolutely every catastrophe that could ever possibly exist um so I try to
like that's one of the things is trying to let go of trying to control it um like my brain will try
to come up with everything that I could that could go wrong so that I could I can control it in
advance and so trying to let go of that is a big one um but yeah I think I think you have to work on
your self-esteem a lot um like getting to the point that Ashley is at where you can say I am like I am
on par with everyone I don't know that I'm there yet uh so that's something that I'm just still
working on for myself but it's definitely having heard it and knowing that it works it would be
something that I would try to implement and I think that's one of the things that I would try
to implement that's definitely a goal I don't know if you guys are as big of nerds as I am about
these things but um in the more recent Marvel movies they've approached the Hulk in the idea
that he can control when he hulks out um by saying that he's he's always angry so he doesn't need to
control his anger he just sort of unleashes it at any given time and so I think that's one of the
things that I've been working on for a long time and I feel the same except with anxiety I am always
anxious but um my ability to sort of control it and use it to my advantage is a sort of spin it as
um my enthusiasm or my passion about a subject so if I'm anxious and I'm talking really fast
and I know that I'm not going to be able to stop myself from doing that then I'm going to use that
as a way to control my passion and my enthusiasm and use that as a way to get other people to be
enthusiastic about the same thing so I don't always feel on par with everyone else in the room
I would love to feel that that's a goal for sure um but in the meantime I feel like I can use my
enthusiasm to at least engage people and that's a way that I can sort of spin my anxiety to be
hindrance no I think that's I think that's fabulous um I guess just because I know we've
we're probably about a half hour into this um I just kind of want to like open up for any like
last minute questions or just like thoughts about scientific communication as a whole I know I mean
as with all of these topics that we bring to this podcast and we could talk for hours upon hours
there are plenty of books written for all of these types of topics um but I guess one thing
I was wondering is if there was any like resources I guess that like you found helped you become a
better scientific communicator I know for myself um Brown University has like a guide to science
communication something um that like you know talks about really briefly of like how to know
your audience how to say your message how to you know um what medium you're using and it gives a
lot of good resources but I didn't know if y'all had any resources that like you wanted to share um
for the audience and we can obviously write all of this out in like the podcast descriptions as well
um but that worked for you to become you know the science communicator that you are
I think one way I try to do it um mostly because I've only really spoken in educational
settings um is uh because I I feel like I learn a little bit differently I try to cater to the way
that I would want to be presented to um so if I would want something overly explained or if I
would want a lot of visuals or um like however I just try to think about how I would want to learn
and then try to implement that instead of trying to follow like a cookie cutter um like a set way
because we only you know things only expand when we try to like push outside of it and I just try
to push to where I would want it pushed to that's I think I my focus has been through my media
literacy training primarily rather than a specific resource and there's you know a ton of YouTube
videos about this sort of thing so it's not something that you need to read a book about
or take a course on necessarily although I would recommend if you ever get an opportunity to take
a course on that I think it's an extremely valuable part of any education but understanding media
literacy and the way that it can be presented from multiple different media um can help you
transform whatever version you're working in you can learn from the tips and tricks from other
uh media and bring it to your specific medium and that's something that I thought was extremely
helpful um my a former advisor gave me a book called uh Write Your Way to the Top um and that
was something that he used a lot in writing his uh journal articles he writes a ton of journal
articles so I do trust his opinion on those things um and that's helpful but again it is a
little cookie cutter in in thinking that you have to change your style of thinking style of writing
style of communicating to fit one certain thing rather I would take that as a guide or a suggestion
an outline if you will to to put your your own spin on not too cookie cutter
Ashley what would you say you're a pretty beloved TA at at the school so how would you how do you
approach it?
Well with all the lectures I've done recently as an instructor the way I do it is
um I try to know my students I tried it with meaning I try to know my audience and put in a
little bit of everything for everybody so and part of that is just like what you did Jenna
I know me I I have issues myself and I would like to you know would I like to sit through this
lecture would I like to sit through this presentation would I like to read this article most of the
articles I write I wouldn't want to read but would I want to read this article and
that's how I try to write it that's how I try to give the presentation and what I find is
the delivery is much more important than what's on the slide the delivery is you know how you write
something is more important than what you're writing the the statistics and the materials and
the materials and methods yes you need to be sort of we did this and we did this did this did this
but how you say it really changes the way it's received and that's how I try to write things
that's how I try to give presentations.
No I mean that's I guess that kind of before we close out I guess that kind of leads into that
one of my last questions that I kind of had for this topic was like do y'all think that
everyone within the field of anthropology or even more specifically forensic anthropology
like is it each of our jobs to be science communicators or is it okay for like
one person to be really good at it and like they kind of be the spokesperson or
or should we have like public not public officials what's the word public relations people that like
do the outward facing stuff more or is it kind of on each of us to like
work those muscles to be better science communicators like what do y'all think?
Well I for me personally I think it's a good idea to do both.
We as scientists have to become better scientific communicators.
We have to be able to relate to lay audiences relate to our peers relate to students we have
to be able to relate to a lot of different people but at the same time if you're in say an agency
of some kind and you have to communicate with the public if there's somebody that is really
really really good at that let them do it just let them do it that gets the anxiety off of you
and the information you want to convey is conveyed.
I can agree with that I think we don't need to all be experts in everything and there's going to be
some people who are better at communicating than others and it's a great idea to rely on them for
that expertise just as you rely on any other expert on a particular subject for anything else
but I do think there is a baseline level that everybody should be bringing to the table
and that I'm going to harp again on the literacy aspect of it. We really engage in scientific
literacy in our field and that's something that we expect a baseline level of from every scientist
but the media literacy aspect is something that we've really let go and that's a muscle that we
haven't worked and that's one that we could really be bringing to everybody's attention
to at least some degree. I was introduced to it in high school and I think that's a great place
to start to learn those things because as you move into reading different resources you not only need
to learn how to communicate it you need to learn how to digest it too and those things go hand in
hand so if we're if we're being taught that we need to parse through information to a certain
level we need to be able to do that and that's one of the things that we need to be able to do
at a certain level. We also need to be able to deliver that information to a certain level
and that's something I think across the board should be something we all work on a muscle we
all exercise. Yeah I'm somewhere in the middle I suppose I guess I think of for all the Big Bang
Theory people out there I think of like the Sheldon Coopers of the world who are are incredibly
brilliant and have a lot to offer in terms of the research that they can conduct and the things
the answers that they can come up with but who are just not meant for for every audience and if maybe
at some point we got to a place where it would be acceptable for a person to be that brilliant
and then have maybe someone translate it for them like a trusted like we have people who translate
different languages so if maybe you only speak science and that's all you can muster up that you
could find someone that you trust to be your your media person who can translate it from science to
media and then like being okay with that kind of thing because I guess I just wonder if the access
that's one of the the things we didn't get into today but in terms of science communication one
of the issues is access and so if those those brilliant souls out there that just can't communicate
for the life of them but can come up with really beautiful and like just groundbreaking things if
we could find a way to open doors in other ways I don't know. There is scientific journalism I will
plug the work that scientific journalists do here. I did that as part of my minor when I was in my
undergrad because I realized how important it was and the role of a scientific journalist is to take
science writing and to translate it for a general news audience and I think that is such a valuable
skill such a valuable person to have to work with and I learned that a lot of scientific journalists
develop deep relationships with scientists in order to be that sort of translator and that is
just such a great relationship to be a part of and I think something we should be relying on a lot
more because those those people are experts in translating that exact thing.
Yeah that's great like maybe every department someday would have one of those on their staff
that could support the students that just can't you know I don't know I would love that. I mean
I bet the journalists would love the jobs too so yeah yeah let's all do it but yeah I mean I don't
know if y'all have any last minute questions or comments that y'all want to kind of let our
audience know. I know I just really wanted to thank Laura for joining us and I mean I know for
sure giving me a lot to think about about how I do science communication and hopefully she kind of
gave y'all as the audience as well some stuff to think about. But yeah so any last minute remarks
before we sign out? I just want to say thank you so much for including me here this was really fun
and I love talking about this. I'm always happy for the opportunity and this was great and if
the audience ever has any questions or anything that they're interested in I can give you contact
information to share. I'm happy to continue this conversation off the air. Perfect yeah I know we
have a email that you can email us at Ashley it's like the Bone Club something right what is it
again sorry? It's the bone club podcast at gmail.com. Perfect it's in all the bio stuff for where you
ever click this podcast. But yeah we can definitely add your contact Laura to this episode as well so
if they want to reach out to you and get you know pick your brain some more they can do that. But
yeah I mean I think that's really it for the Bone Club this episode so yeah. That is thank you so
much Laura. Thank you and I know kind of along this same topic of science communication and
getting that feedback I mean we're also willing to listen to feedback from the audience about
what y'all like about our podcast but you don't like about our podcast.
Topics that y'all want us to discuss because you know the last couple months we've kind of just been
talking about things that interested us and things that like you know the conversation geared one way
as we just chatted with each other and we're like oh we should do that as another episode. But if
y'all have any specific topics y'all want to discuss as well just let us know in the emails.
Workshop with us. Yeah but I guess we're signing off. Thank you all. Bye. Bye.