Mistakes to Avoid
Missing Important Steps
It can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of sharing your scholarship and accidentally miss steps in the process.
For example, before communicating about your new research, technology or scholarship, you should speak to the Office of Tech Transfer to ensure that your research cannot be licensed, trademarked, or patented. Communicating your research too soon may disclose too much information, and make it impossible for you to take your research to the next level.
Are you sharing the news of a new research award or grant? Contact the Office of Sponsored Programs to ensure that your grant/award has successfully landed before communicating it.
Is your research or scholarship soon to be published in a scientific journal or manuscript? If so, your research may be under embargo and can not be promoted until the piece is published. If so, you should still reach out to your campus research or college communicator to make a game plan in advance of publication.
Avoid ‘Hype’ language
“We are the first/the only to do ______.”
“This innovation is the biggest/best_____.”
These are big statements, and without proof to substantiate them, they smack of marketing/promotional verbiage. Do not make these claims about your work unless you can defend them with research.
Avoid jargon
Recrudescence. Polyethylene terephthalate. Stochastic. Oeuvre. Presbyopia. What?
Jargon is important and useful in the field. However, it is also exclusive. In stories for a general audience, jargon IS detrimental. Research published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology reveals that jargon makes readers feel a) as if they do not belong in the conversation, b) they are bad at science, and c) they don’t want to learn about science. It can even cause readers to distrust science.
Research has also found that even fellow scientists balk at too much jargon.
The goal of research communications is to make research accessible to everyone.
When you are writing or communicating your research or creative activity story for a non-technical audience, imagine first that you are going to share it with a stranger sitting next to you on the bus. You do not know anything about their interests, background, or education. Shape your story accordingly. If you are having difficulty translating your research or jargon into accessible terms, your college and campus communicators can help.
Avoid the ALPHABET SOUP
Similar to jargon, acronyms and initialisms are alienating. SUB. EPSCOR. GEM3. NIH. IEEE. Your audience should not have to Google anything in your story to be able to understand it. Always begin with a full title “Center for Exciting Elephant Studies”, and then in later references use an appropriate noun such as “the center/the program/the award” as opposed to CEES.