Huh? Say What?

(Research Translation)

Just about every day in the news you’ll hear or read something like “Based in research coming out of [very important and impressive sounding place] . . .” Because a news reader or news publication is presenting this research that has come from this impressive place, we’re inclined to trust it, but should we?

I find academic research intimidating to read, even having been exposed to it for more than twenty years. And yet when I see reporting on research I’m familiar with, I often find mistakes, overgeneralizations, misinterpretations, exaggerations. It’s frustrating when I know something is off. It also makes me wonder if something is off more often than I know when I hear about research in areas I’m not familiar with.

Academic research may embrace jargon that seems obscure to the layperson. The procedures make my head spin, and the statistical findings, with their confidence intervals and standard deviations, are equally confounding.

It’s important to remember that academic research is written for specific audiences and with specific purposes in mind. All the stuff that seems confusing to a layperson helps other academics judge the underlying rigor with which the authors approached their research. Using jargon or terminology that seems obscure to me but is common in the specific field signals belonging to that field—that the author(s) is a member of the particular tribe for whom this research is conducted and is of interest.

This doesn’t necessarily make academic research elitist or exclusive. If you sat down in the office of a coaching staff for a professional sport, you’d be equally subject to jargon or terms that seem foreign and confusing. It’s a way for people within a culture to speak to one another.

There are some writers who specialize in “popularizing” academic research. Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for the New Yorker, is perhaps the most well known, though many academics are critical of the way he sometimes ignores the complexities of the research he popularizes.

But the vast majority of published research never breaks out of the academic world. This experience is designed to achieve two things: (1) get you working with academic research in order to up your comfort level with texts that are often complex and foreign, and (2) do a favor for the academics who publish their research by “translating” their findings for a more general audience.

This will also be an excellent challenge to your reading skills, since it may initially feel like diving into a foreign language.

AUDIENCE

Your audience consists of regular people who are curious and like to learn new things about the world but probably don’t make a regular habit of perusing publications such as the Journal of Supply Chain Management or the Journal of Biosensors and Bioelectronics or the Journal for Maritime Research or the Journal of Literary Semantics.

(All of these exist for real.)

They want to know what the researchers have found in their research, but they don’t want to do the hard work of reading and interpreting the academic research for themselves.

You goal is to wow them by telling them something cool they didn’t already know. It need not be life changing or earth shattering, but you’re aiming for something they might want to pass along to someone else, like that trees and plants can apparently communicate with each other through a network of underground fungi, as found in the research of Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia.

That’s cool, right?

You’ll want to provide a sufficient translation of the original academic research to give your audience enough information to pass on the cool idea to someone else.

PROCESS

1. Choose the journal and article.

You can easily find lists of academic journals online at Wikipedia and elsewhere. If you have access to an academic library, you will find the available resources through the library’s online interfaces for journals.

My recommendation is to start with a subject area of interest and then look for journals under that subject. When you find an interesting-looking journal, start browsing individual articles. The article abstracts should give a good indication as to whether a more thorough look at the entire article is warranted. You only need one article, and as long as there’s an interesting takeaway in the findings it’ll work for our purposes.

2. Digest the article.

Notice I did not say “read” your article. Sure, you’ll read it, but this kind of text often requires a process that focuses on what you need to meet your objective, rather than digging into every last morsel of information. Remember your purpose and audience. You’ll want to read the whole article, but there will be much information that will be largely irrelevant to your goals. For example, the specifics of a research sample are important for researchers who may want to try to replicate the research, but you may just need to know that the sample was random or a sample of convenience. You’re more interested in why this sample was used than in the particular nitty-gritty.

For the most part, you’ll want to concentrate on the findings and implications (sometimes also called “discussion”), which is where the results of the research and why the research is important is shared. Make sure you have a deep understanding of this material. This may require additional reading in sources other than the article. If there is a term or idea you don’t understand, seek outside resources that will help you understand it.

This is what is meant by “digesting” the article. You’re not going to be able to bluff your understanding.

3. Translate the article.

Keeping your focus on your audience’s needs, attitudes, and knowledge, tell them what’s up with the research. Think about how to hook their interest and then satisfy their questions and curiosity once their interest is hooked.

For example, if I said, “Did you know that trees can talk to each other?” you’d say something like, “Whatchoo talking about?” My next sentence would add depth and clarity to my initial statement. Once I’m done with that, my audience likely has another question they want answered, maybe something like, “Who would study such a thing?” or “Why should I believe you?,” in which case I’d likely go deeper into who conducted the research, how it was conducted, and why forestry scientists are interested in researching these questions.

4. Test your translation.

Find an audience and have them read your translation. Ask them to rate their interest in repeating your message to someone else on a scale of one to ten where one means, “I’d like to actively forget I even read this thing,” and ten means, “I have to go find a tall building and a megaphone so I can shout this fascinating information to the world.”

After that, ask them to repeat what they believe they’ve learned. If they’re going to be broadcasting the message to the world, you want to make sure the message is accurate.

5. Revise, edit, polish, title.

Utilizing your audience feedback, as well as your own reflections on your draft and how well it engages your audience and purpose, revise your translation accordingly.

A title that captures the most interesting nugget of the research will help hook the audience.

REFLECT

How long did it take you to digest the article? Do you feel more confident in your ability to interact with this kind of specialized research and writing? If so, what technique or skill you employed will be most useful going forward?

If not, what do you think you need to work on in the future to increase your confidence?

REMIX

For fun, do a reverse translation: take something nonacademic and write it in a highly authoritative style and tone. What are the traits of the expert voice you are trying to mimic?

THE PERILS OF “OBJECTIVITY”

One of the most corrosive beliefs I find among developing writers is the idea that in their writing, they should strive for objectivity.

I think there are a lot of reasons for this. For the past thirty or so years, schools have been focused on assessment and standardization. Students are asked to identify a single “correct” answer. When applied to writing, this suggests there is an objective standard by which writing is to be judged.

There isn’t.

Another reason is that some people like to claim a kind of rhetorical high ground by declaring themselves to be purely rational, as though they’ve achieved a kind of Spock-like view of the world. Those who do this are, of course, kidding themselves, unless they are actually Mr. Spock, who is a fictional character.

Some researchers may imagine their work to be objective, and in some hard sciences objective observation is the modus operandi, but all research is inherently subjective, starting with the choice of what to research. Those who get away with claiming they are objective where others are not are more likely simply working in a kind of default mode that has not yet been examined for its biases.

In writing, there is no virtue to objectivity, partly because it’s impossible to achieve, and partly because no one really wants to read objective writing. The idea that a writer should spend their time trying to achieve objectivity in their expression is a colossal waste of everyone’s time.

This doesn’t mean anything goes, however. In fact, the writer’s responsibilities are far deeper and more important than projecting an illusion of objectivity.

As you write, you should be less concerned with objectivity and more focused on discovery. If you learn something you didn’t know before you started writing a piece, you’re on the right track. It’s a heck of a lot more fun too.

Consider something like a movie review. By definition, a movie review must be opinionated, not objective, because there is no objective standard for what makes a good movie. Even the crappiest movies get some positive reviews.

Instead of objectivity, we should embrace other values, things like transparency, fairness, accuracy, and openness. If you’re doing a review and it stars a performer whose very existence puts your teeth on edge, you do not need to pretend this is not the case. In fact, pretending it’s not the case and hiding this fact from the audience is a great disservice.

Instead, you should be transparent, declaring your bias to the audience up front, so they can evaluate your opinion in the light of your bias.

Rather than striving for objectivity, the goal is to develop a critical sensibility, a way of seeing the world that allows you to evaluate the claims and beliefs of others and weigh them against your own beliefs. Strong writing comes from strong beliefs well expressed.

At the same time, we should be open to changing our beliefs should experiences and information warrant. This is where openness comes in to play.

Our values, on the other hand, are relatively immutable, unlikely to shift. Often our beliefs change when we realize an existing belief is in conflict with our underlying values.

If you are striving to be accurate, fair, truthful, and transparent, you are fulfilling your responsibilities to the audience. Claiming objectivity is a lie, and we definitely try not to lie to our audiences.