What’s the story: Scientific storytelling with The Company of Biologists community sites

Passing information through storytelling is a powerful tool. It can take many forms, from clustering around a campfire, to writing a blog post or creating a comic. As scientists, we can use the same forms to disseminate our research to our peers and to the general public. While our presentations need to be data-driven rather than allowing us to exercise the full range of our imagination, we should aim to use the data to tell our stories. In this workshop, we’ll hear from experts on how to incorporate storytelling into your verbal, written and visual science communication, and we’ll discuss how we think that FocalPlane, the Node and preLights can help you develop these skills.  

This workshop is designed for researchers looking to use storytelling to improve (and practice) their communications skills to both their peers and to the public. As well as presentations on verbal, written and visual storytelling, we’ll  be bringing back the short talk competition, which was so well received at our SciCommConnect workshop, where selected researchers will present their research in 2 minutes. The workshop is free to attend and is open to researchers at all career stages, although when selecting talks for the short talk competition, preference will be given to early-career researchers.

Join us on Tuesday 10 November from 13:00 to 17:00 GMT

Registration for short talks closes on Sunday 27 October
Registration closes Friday 7 November

Agenda

• Welcome and introductions
• Making science talks thoughtful, purposeful and creative – Duncan Yellowlees
• Two-minute research talk competition
• Finding the story in scientific research – Kathryn Knight
• Visual storytelling in science – Sonhita (“Son”) Chakraborty
• Closing remarks

Research talk competition

To be considered for the two-minute talk competition, please submit one of the following (as indicated in the registration form):

• A short, engaging headline about your work
• A one-minute video or audio recording explaining your research
• A graphic representing your research