Introductions for scientists et al.

There’s a reason that TV shows rely on the ‘Previously on’ preface to an episode - if you can provide context and the background information, any narrative built on top of it will have a larger impact to the audience.

Unfortunately in science, there’s no narrator and filling in the backstory is left to us. Enter the introduction: a crucial piece of any communication which has become increasingly challenging to effectively write when communicating with non-scientists; As science progresses, the gap increases between the understanding of a specialist in a field, and the layman.

Luckily, there are a couple ways to increase the simplicity and effectiveness of writing. The first is the easiest, and simply involves scheduling drafts to give yourself time away from the piece to make sure you know what you mean. The second just requires giving a draft to one of your audience - my wife who is a communication major and is nearly scientifically-illiterate is my typical sounding board - this part of the writing process pays dividends, because not only will it point out where the piece lacks clarity, often in explaining it you will partially complete the rewrite.

As an example from my thesis, here’s an introduction to crystallization (leading to a particularly rare-form that happens in cells); I assumed that my reader had a highschool-biology understanding of life science, and so even this may be too complicated for some.

“Crystallization is a form of aggregation. Where aggregation may be a random, conglomerate of denatured proteins, crystals consist of a lattice of regular (i.e. very similarly ordered) proteins packed in a repeating unit. Crystallization can maintain structure and activity, and therefore represents a functionally distinct form of aggregation, although aggregation, in general, is an undesirable outcome biologically. This is because aggregation sequesters proteins and removes the crucial activity they perform within the cell, which may lower that organism’s competitiveness within the environment. Maintaining functionality of soluble proteins requires maintaining their active conformation within the cellular environment, thus there is an evolutionary selection against aggregation. It follows that crystallization is not a typical outcome for proteins. “

Is this perfect writing? No. If we look only at the content, I have assumed that the reader knows that proteins are (primarily) found within the cell, and are responsible for completing cellular functions. These may be reasonable assumptions, but there’s another concept within this piece that is classic biochemistry and a highschooler likely wouldn’t have seen before: protein conformation. This refers to the specific 3D shape of a protein, where (often) a very specific shape will allow it to complete its tasks within the cell. When it loses this shape, it is called “denatured”.

This kind of content editing is a must for proper scientific communication. One way to get around this is to explain a concept in levels - Start broad, reiterate when important, and build a knowledge base until the audience can follow you to the desired point.

Although the analogy of a TV show breaks down for much of the writing process presented here, your audience will enjoy the show a lot more if they don’t have to pause it and ask, “who’s that [protein] again? and why is he trying to kill his step-father?”. The ‘previously on’ matters and deserves to have time spent on it.