Effective Scientific Communication in Geography: Writing and Presenting Research

1. Chapter 13 Scientific Communication in Geography Shannon Sprott Geog 4020 - Research Methods in Geography University of Denver

2. Scientific Communication • Scientific Communication is critically important to the entire process of research, not just to its results, and it involves as assortment of communications that vary from the relatively formal to the relatively informal. Much scientific communication occurs in verbal form, both oral and written, but also in numerical and graphical forms.

3. Written Communication • Scientific Literature – the archive of written research communication that includes journal articles, books, and so on. • Books - contain some combination of concepts, theories, empirical results, literature reviews, and methodological discussions. • Grant Application – a request for research funding for a proposed program of research, made to sources such as public agencies and private foundations. Oral Communication • Most notable oral communication are talks given at conferences. • These talks are called papers even though they are given orally.

4. The most Important Scientific Literature are Scientific Journals • Empirical Studies • Literature Review - Summarizes all relevant articles presenting research on a particular issue. • Theoretical Paper - Presents new concepts, theories, or models but not new empirical results.

5. Ways of Giving Effective Oral Presentations • Content - Have a single theme or main point - Think about your audience - Explain acronyms & other abbreviations upon first usage. • Presentation Style - Your goal is to inform & entertain; don’t read your paper - Establish eye contact with the audience - Speak loud enough, vary your tone, and be enthusiastic. • Appearance & Presentation - Use words & graphics (photos, graphs, maps, & videos) - Avoid overly complex or busy slides that include to much information. - Use large font size & carefully proofread for typos & inconsistencies.

6. Peer Review System for Academic Publishing • The peer review system consists of authors, editors, and reviewers, and the process they use to determine whether a manuscript should be published in a particular outlet, and it so, what should change about the manuscript to improve it for publication. • The criteria used to decide if a manuscript should be accepted for publication include a great variety of issued concerning the way research studies were conducted, the way they were interpreted, the way the research was connected to other research that exist in the scientific literature, and the way the manuscript is written and otherwise communicated in tables and graphs.

7. Considerations when Reviewing Manuscript for Publication • Is the manuscript appropriate for the journal under consideration? • Does the manuscript make an original contribution? • Is the appropriate literature cited and accurately described? • Are the proper methods used? Are concerns about the validity of the methods addressed? • Are the proper statistical or mathematical tests applied, and are they applied correctly? Are the results interpreted correctly? • Is the title appropriate and informative? • Is the writing clear, unambiguous, and effective? Are punctuation & grammar correct? • Can the manuscript be shortened without loss of important content, or does it need to be expanded in some places? • Are the tables and figures necessary & well designs? Should there be additional ones? How could they be improved?

8. Basic Structure of a Journal Manuscript • Title Page - First page of a submitted manuscript. - Includes the authors names (order matters and must be discussed ahead of time), and departmental or institutional affiliation. • Abstract - Very short summary of what you did and why, what you found, and what it means. - as few as 100 words and rarely more than 300. • Introduction - First major section of a research manuscript. - includes topic, citations to relevant literature, put your problem in context, & end with a specific research question or hypothesis. • Method – Second major section of a research manuscript. - Includes cases (who or what, how sampled), materials (including equipment, survey questions, computer displays), & procedures (narrative of what you did to get the data & make the model)

9. Basic Structure of a Journal Manuscript Continued…… • Results - Third major section of a research manuscript. - Includes descriptive (especially) and inferential statistics, concise interpretation (avoid broad conclusions here), & data treatments, transformations, data problems, and how you dealt with them. • Discussion - Fourth and final major section of a research manuscript. - Narrowly restates major results, interprets them both specifically and broadly, considers problems and limitations, and suggest future research. • References or Bibliography - List of literature sources for manuscript placed at the end. - Usually in alphabetical order by first authors last name, & li8st in chronological order is there are multiple references by same authors. • Tables and/or Figures & Appendices

10. Two Aspects of Style in Scientific Writing • Scientific research should be expressed in precise and straightforward language. “Say what you mean clearly and simple”. Avoid silted, pedantic writing, including the dreaded “scientese” that employs passive and jargony sentences in order to sound scientific. • Scientific communication should avoid sexist language. Writers should not consistently use masculine singular pronouns in a generic or default manner, that is , when the sex of the person referred to could be male or female is otherwise irrelevant.

11. Using your library for Scientific Research • Your local library consists of an incredible storehouse, containing a variety of scholarly and research resources. • These resources include; scientific research, reference books, publically available data sets (secondary data), maps and imagery, dissertations, newspapers, special collections, and more. • Most importantly, libraries provide the basis for scholarship! • Scholarship is knowing what has and hasn’t been said or done, & what is and is not believed to be true. • Library resources provide ideas that help you design and carry out your research, such as techniques you could use to collect or analyze data. • Library resources allow you to give recognition to people who have some up with new ideas or results, thus giving credit where it has been earned.