How The Scientific Method Guides Science Communication

Curiosity is the core of scientific discovery. It drives scientists to learn more about the world by questioning the “how”, “why” and “when”.

Science writers have the same drive to explore as their research counterparts. I think of it as being professionally nosy; I observe a phenomenon in the biomedical industry and compile data. Once I’ve drawn my final conclusions, I write an article describing my findings.

These steps broadly follow the scientific method, a checklist for the process of discovery we learned as grade school students. Just like researchers, science communicators use the scientific method as a guide to investigating the world around us.

For beginners interested in making the jump from behind the bench, I recommend following each step of the scientific method for science writing. This ensures that your final story is accurate, well researched and useful to the public. Incorporate this guide to science writing based on the six-step scientific method to launch your science communication career.

Step 1: Question everything

Keep an eye on breaking news in your chosen field. Seeing a commercial for a new drug might spark interest in the disease that drug treats. An upcoming celestial event like a meteor shower or supermoon makes you question, “Why does this happen?”

You can also search for new research online. Health and wellness writers should subscribe to policy changes from the Department of Health and Human Services or your country’s equivalent government body. Those interested in life sciences can check new and trending articles on major open-access journals like Nature Communications and Science Advances. Pick an article on a topic that interests you and formulate a research question.

Step 2: Do the research

Scientists turned science writers have a big advantage over other journalists in research. We have experience reading complex articles and writing literature reviews, distilling hundreds of hours of research into a short, easy to read paper or proposal. Apply that same skill to discovering more about your chosen topic.

Science communication is all about the facts. Bloggers and social media writers can sometimes add their own opinions to their reporting, but generally you want your readers to gain an unbiased, basic knowledge of your topic.

Step 3: Hypothesize, don’t prophesize

A hypothesis contains both the subject of your article and a possible outcome. Make an educated guess on the cause or effect of your topic based on your research and prepare to be disproved. Sometimes writers, and researchers, craft a possible explanation for their topic and get so attached to it that they make the data fit the hypothesis and not the other way around.

Make multiple hypotheses in the process of your literature review, like “if mouse studies in pharmaceuticals are replaced with in vitro models, then drug development trials will take less time” and “if the cancer mutation introduced into the study’s mice was introduced to zebrafish, then the phenotypic results would be similar”. Both hypotheses focus on mouse models in pharmaceutical research, but they don’t only make a prediction (mouse models will be replaced by in vitro models) or only draw a conclusion (mouse models make drug development trials slow).

Step 4: Human experimentation

This is the type of human experimentation that doesn’t require IRB approval! Although you’ve researched your topic, you aren’t an expert. Interviewing professionals brings a specialist’s perspective to your article and makes the public more likely to trust your findings.

Setting up, performing and fact-checking interviews is a skill. Professionals likely won’t answer your emails if you’re sending them from a Gmail account with a silly name or being too long-winded in your message. Keep your email short and sweet, requesting an interview on “topic” and asking when they would be available to meet over video conference, phone or potentially in-person. It also helps to put “interview” in the subject of your email.

Ask short, relevant questions based on your research and hypothesis. Factual information can be paraphrased, but the most impactful direct quotes are personable and opinionated.

Step 5: Connect, condense, conclude

Now that you have the three most important parts of your article (question, research and expert input) your task is to combine them. The title and first line should grab the reader’s attention like an abstract at a conference, convincing attendees to come to your poster or talk.

Most science communication flows in story form. Consider the general format of a story: the beginning introduces all the characters and the dramatic question, the middle contains a central conflict and character development around the question, and the end answers the question, concluding the story. Make sure your ending satisfies the reader’s initial curiosity.

Step 6: The hard part, publication

Science writers working for a specific journal, magazine or agency have a big advantage over freelance science writers when it comes to publishing. These articles are edited, posted on a website or sent to print, ensuring the professional quality of research and reporting.

However, many science communicators self-publish! A great way to post articles is to create a blog or portfolio website. Having a robust collection of written work can supplement a resume if applying for a full-time science writer position or advertise your level of writing skill to potential freelance clients. Then, use social media to network and notify everyone when you publish.

Bonus step: Start over again!

The job of a science writer never ends. There will always be new breakthroughs in science, medicine and biotechnology, and the public will always need someone to translate research into relevancy. Follow these steps as you report on anything that strikes your curiosity, and you’ll quickly reach your science writing dreams.

Bio: Inayah Entzminger is a science communicator with over five years of experience on both sides of the bench: as a researcher producing experimental data and as a biomedical journalist translating data for the public. They currently work as a careers columnist for ASBMB Today, a biochemistry magazine. They earned their M.Phil. in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York.