How can you use narratives to effectively communicate your lab's research?

As a lab manager, you know how important it is to communicate your research effectively to different audiences, such as funders, collaborators, peers, and the public. However, presenting your data and methods in a dry and technical way can be boring and confusing for some listeners. How can you make your research more engaging and memorable? One way is to use narratives, or stories, to illustrate your main points and convey your passion and purpose. In this article, you will learn how to use narratives to effectively communicate your lab's research in various contexts.

1 Why use narratives?

Narratives are powerful tools for communication because they appeal to human emotions, curiosity, and imagination. They can help you connect with your audience, build trust and credibility, and inspire action and change. Narratives can also help you simplify complex concepts, highlight key insights, and demonstrate the impact and relevance of your research. By using narratives, you can show your audience why your research matters and what you hope to achieve with it.

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David Priede, MIS, PhD

Director of Advanced Technologies and Author
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1. Create a compelling story: Craft a narrative that captures the essence of your research, its significance, and the journey that led to the findings. 2. Humanize the research: Instead of presenting dry facts and figures, weave in personal stories and experiences of the researchers involved. 3. Use relatable analogies and examples: Translate complex concepts and technical jargon into easily understandable analogies and examples that resonate with your audience. 4. Incorporate visuals: Use visuals, such as illustrations, diagrams, or animations, to complement your narrative and enhance understanding.

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Herbert Jank

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment
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Narratives are quintessential. Humans do not get appealed by pure facts and figures, not even chartered accountants. Appeal to their emotions, interests, curiosity and imagination. Take them on a journey via your narrative and story telling. Do not only let them participate on your knowledge, tell them also why it matters and what they can get out of it for themselves. Pass fire, not ashes of past.

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Dennis Odoi

Senior Biomedical Scientist || Health Writer || WHO FIDES member || Public Health Officer || Reproductive Health Advocate || Entrepreneur || Certified Google Digital Marketer
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Using narratives to communicate your lab's research can be effective in conveying scientific concepts. They provide a cohesive framework for presenting research findings, making the information more relatable and understandable to diverse audiences. By incorporating storytelling elements, researchers can create a compelling narrative that captures attention and fosters emotional connections with the audience. This humanises the research process, highlighting its significance and impact on society. Narratives help simplify complex concepts, making them more accessible to non-experts and facilitating knowledge dissemination. Narratives as a communication strategy enhances the effectiveness of conveying your lab's research to a wider audience.

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Stephen Awuah

Digital Writer|| Award Winning Author|| Leader I help leaders, coaches, consultants and expert professionals become highly valued and highly paid in their industry
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Communicating for a lab research is fundamental. There are several ways of communicating for a lab research. Narrative being the most preferred. To use Narratives, it's expedient to wrap the goal of the research in a professional story form that convers in detail the expectations and responsibilities to be carried out.

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2 How to craft narratives?

To craft effective narratives, you need to follow some basic principles of storytelling. First, you need to identify your main message and goal. What do you want your audience to know, feel, or do after hearing your narrative? Second, you need to know your audience. Who are they, what do they care about, and what do they need to understand your research? Third, you need to structure your narrative. A typical narrative has three parts: a beginning that sets the scene and introduces the problem or challenge, a middle that describes the actions and events that lead to the solution or discovery, and an end that reveals the outcome and implications. Fourth, you need to use language and style that suit your audience and context. You can use analogies, metaphors, examples, anecdotes, quotes, or humor to make your narrative more vivid and relatable.

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3 When to use narratives?

You can use narratives in various situations where you need to communicate your research, such as grant proposals, presentations, publications, media interviews, or outreach activities. However, you need to adapt your narrative to the specific purpose, format, and time limit of each situation. For example, if you are writing a grant proposal, you can use a narrative to explain the background and significance of your research question, the novelty and feasibility of your approach, and the expected outcomes and impact of your project. If you are giving a presentation, you can use a narrative to hook your audience's attention, illustrate your main points, and summarize your key takeaways.

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Finette Isaac-Balogun
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You use narratives in your background of study and even case studies when writing proposals, projects, presentations about your experimental works

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4 What are some examples of narratives?

To give you some inspiration, here are some examples of narratives from different fields and contexts. In biology, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier used a narrative to describe how they discovered the CRISPR-Cas9 system for gene editing, and how it revolutionized biotechnology and medicine. In physics, Brian Greene used a narrative to explain the concept of string theory and its implications for the nature of reality, and how he became fascinated by it as a child. In psychology, Daniel Kahneman used a narrative to introduce his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, and how he and his colleague Amos Tversky uncovered the biases and heuristics that affect human decision making.

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Finette Isaac-Balogun
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Very true. Narratives just involve the human examples that validates your lab work - Bringing that work into the human scenario and ensuring it is applicable.

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5 What are some challenges and pitfalls of narratives?

Using narratives can also have some challenges and pitfalls that you need to be aware of and avoid. One challenge is to balance accuracy and simplicity. You want to make your research accessible and understandable, but not oversimplify or distort it. You need to be honest and transparent about your assumptions, limitations, and uncertainties, and avoid making exaggerated or unsupported claims. Another challenge is to avoid jargon and technical terms that might confuse or alienate your audience. You need to define or explain any terms that are not common knowledge, and use plain and clear language. A pitfall is to be too self-centered or arrogant. You want to show your enthusiasm and expertise, but not brag or boast. You need to acknowledge your sources, collaborators, and competitors, and respect your audience's opinions and perspectives.

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Finette Isaac-Balogun
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Challenges you may experience are different settings of the experiment in different places. It might be repeated somewhere else with a different result. It might be due to different reagents or even same with different manufacturers, the water source, the type of equipments and many reasons. All these affect the quality of your work and thus the narrative. It might not be generally accepted but if the right quality control procedures are well carried out, your work will be close to being perfect!

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Finette Isaac-Balogun
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You might want to consider the best choice of equipments, reagents and other apparatus that will help your research give a perfect narrative to your work.

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How can you use narratives to effectively communicate your lab's research?

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1 Why use narratives?

2 How to craft narratives?

3 When to use narratives?

4 What are some examples of narratives?

5 What are some challenges and pitfalls of narratives?

6 Here’s what else to consider

Laboratory Management

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