Chapter 3: Making a story sticky - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Chapter 3: Making a story sticky

These slides were prepared by Sylvie Noël with minor modifications for CS by D. Avishttps://www.slideshare.net/SylvieNolSlide2

From

Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded, Joshua Schimel, 2011Slide3

SUCCES: Making a story sticky

S: SimpleU: UnexpectedC: ConcreteC: CredibleE: EmotionalS: storiesSlide4

Simple

Find the simple message that captures the essence of your research paperSimple ≠ SimplisticSimplistic messages dumb down or trivialize the issue or dodge the core of the problemSlide5

Simple

“Everything should be as simple as possible but not simpler” (Einstein)“Fit organisms survive and pass on their genes while unfit ones don’t” (Darwin)“It’s the economy, stupid!” (Clinton)Slide6

Simplistic

“People are poor because they are lazy” “You pay too much in taxes” “We are going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it!” (Trump)Slide7

simple vs simplistic?

Senator Ted Stevens was lampooned for his _____ description of the Internet as a series of "tubes "."The truth is rarely pure and never _____."(Oscar Wilde)This software represents the state-of-the art in information-retrieval systems and comes with _____ instructions on how to operate it.Slide8

Simple: schemas

A schema is an underlying organizational pattern or structureHow we structure informationExample schemas: How email is transmitted and received

How large scale software is built and maintained

When we learn, we add to our schemas

When you write, aim for your potential readers’ schemasSlide9

Unexpected

Frame the knowledge gap by using what is known to identify the boundaries of that knowledgeSlide10

Unexpected

Find what is novel in your results and highlight the unexpected elementsFrame new questions and look for new insightsWhat is the knowledge gap you are answering in your paper?Slide11

Concrete

Science has both a concrete side: the dataAnd an abstract side: the ideas Abstract and concrete are a continuum, not a dichotomy: from the concrete data to abstractions of these data to abstractions of these abstractions, and so forthMost research is at a middle level of this continuumSlide12

Concrete

To make your paper more readable:Ground and define your specific concepts in widely understood schemas or in the details that explain the abstractionsSlide13

Credible

Credibility goes hand in hand with concreteOur IDEAS are credible when we ground them in previous work and cite those sourcesOur DATA are credible when we describe our methods, present the data clearly and use appropriate statisticsOur CONCLUSIONS are credible when we show that they grow from those dataSlide14

Emotional

The fundamental emotion in science is CURIOSITYYou need an engaging question, not just dataYou engage curiosity by shifting your focus from “What information do I have to offer” to “What knowledge do I have to offer”Emotion is particularly important for proposalsSlide15

Stories

Stories are modular: a single large story is crafted from several smaller story units threaded togetherWhen writing, think about internal structure and how to integrate these story modulesAs you discuss your data and ideas, find units that you can package into coherent modulesSlide16

Summary: SUCCES

Before you start writing, figure out how you are going to weave these six elements into your workFigure out the simple storyBuild it around the key questions that engage UNEXPECTED and EMOTIONALThis will guide you in selecting the material you need to make the story CONCRETE and CREDIBLE