As a PhD student, I spent years working on complex interactions between cells and viruses. Along the way, I discovered new things that helped us better understand how viruses manipulate our system. After that, I wrote research papers that were published in scientific journals. By doing so, I followed the traditional path of scientific discovery.
Conduct research. Make a finding. Publish it.
I felt proud that I discovered something interesting and published a real scientific paper. But, who read that paper or my thesis? How many people outside my field have heard of it? Probably, very few. How many of you know about those findings? Probably, no one. The number is negligible compared to the billions of people on earth.
Now I wonder, if almost no one reads our work beyond our small pool of scientists, are we really sharing the science to everyone outside? Maybe not. Obviously I believe that scientific discoveries, small or big, are essential for us. All these papers allow other researchers to build upon them. All I am saying is that perhaps we (researchers) are making science inaccessible to the general public by writing our findings in complex words. We are using technical jargon that is difficult to understand, not only for people without a scientific background, but often even for fellow researchers from other disciplines.
And because of that, I think our important discoveries are not reaching the masses.
Let’s understand this by a small example. The following are few sentences from my previous paper.
“To determine the plausible significance of the NDV-induced increased ROS levels in the pathogenesis, we studied the propensity of NDV to replicate in cells with active oxidative stress response. The initial results showed that DMF pre-incubated cells had higher NDV mRNA and protein expression, reflecting comparatively inflated virulence than control DF-1 cells.”
If you do not have a research background, you probably understood very little of that. Maybe, you understood nothing. Don’t worry about this. It’s not because you lack intelligence or curiosity. It’s because those lines are not meant for you to understand. They are for other researchers who need all the technical details of the experiments which were performed to reach the conclusion. But, this is not the best way to communicate with the public.
Here is the simplified version:
“We infected stressed cells with a virus to see how well the virus grows. We found that the virus grew better in stressed cells.”
Simple. Easy. Effective. Agree?
Now, you see the difference between ‘What I meant to say, and what I actually wrote’. See I am guilty of this too. And I accept that I succeeded as a researcher in publishing my work, but failed when it came to communicating it.
I agree with the fact that scientific writing is optimized for accuracy and details, not accessibility. But I want everyone to know about the cool stuff we discover in the labs. I have realized that if I want my research to reach more people, publishing a paper is not enough. I need to simplify it as well. (One of the reasons I write about science discoveries in small easy-to-understand articles.)
Now, what can be done?
If you work in science:
Consider explaining your research to your friends (obviously who are from non-science backgrounds) and family. Write simplified stories out of your research article. Its a world of social media. Record videos explaining your work and share them with everyone and everywhere you can. Make it easy. Be a science-storyteller.
If you are not a scientist but are curious about science:
Ask your researcher friends what they work on. And shoot them with questions. Read about new discoveries from news articles. Use your favorite AI tool to help you understand unfamiliar topics. Most importantly, when you see a scientific claim on social media, take a few minutes to read about it on google. And lastly, read my articles. (shameless plugin😜)
At the end of the day, the discoveries we are making can only have their full impact if everyone can read and understand their significance. Lastly, we must remember that science does not belong to scientists alone. It belongs to everyone. Bye!
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