Most scientists and researchers spend a good part of their working lives communicating with their colleagues, students and peers - talking and writing in language that is specific to their intellectual discipline. This language has an important and necessary purpose; we couldn’t continue our research without the great range of specific terms and meanings at our disposal. Yet many scientists and researchers are occasionally called to translate their research into very different language: language suitable for a broader - public - audience.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do if you are called to talk or write for a public audience is to consider the meaning of your research within their social context. What is important to them? Are they students, a group of farmers, a collection of interested intellectuals, or the people directly affected by your findings? What sorts of things do they value? What is important to them? Whatever it is, try to find the way to connect your thinking and research to what is important to them. Once you’ve begun to do that, you’ve begun to translate your knowledge into their terms.