How to explain scientific ideas: 6 SIMPLE tips from a communication expert | FameLab

Hi, I'm Wendy Sadler, I am a lecturer at Cardiff University,

and I'm the founder of Science Made Simple.

Today I'm going to give you six simple tips of how you can become a brilliant science communicator.

Our first tip, 'S', is for slow down.

Most people deliver their information too fast, at about 180 to 200 words per minute.

Try and find out what your speed is, because research has shown

that actually, delivery at about a hundred words a minute is the best

you can get in terms of people remembering what you say and the credibility

they give to what you say.

You don't need to speak slowly all the time, but use pauses...

...to bring down the average speed.

tip two: 'I' is for interaction.

So your audience has a limited attention span

and anything you can do to raise that is good right?

So interaction could be a question, it could be getting a volunteer on stage,

but how about getting the whole audience to do an experiment with you?

Something very simple.

So here's one you can try wherever you are.

Make a circle with your thumb and your finger,

and line up something on the wall maybe a clock or a picture

inside that circle with both eyes open.

Now close one eye, your left eye, and open it.

Close your right eye and open it.

Did you notice anything happening?

Because probably when one of your eyes closed that object jumped

right outside the circle.

So this is a way of your audience doing a personal experiment

and finding out something new about themselves.

Whichever eye you close that makes the jump happen, that's your dominant eye.

So you've now given your audience a personal bit of information about themselves,

and that's very powerful to grab attention.

tip three, 'M' is for multiple approaches.

People choose to learn in different ways and there are dozens of different approaches

to engage with an audience.

Now you wouldn't be expected to use all of them

in your communication but if you can use more than two or three,

you can appeal to more people.

We can illustrate it if we do a little experiment.

So just close your eyes for a minute and count to three,

but without making a sound.

Okay open your eyes.

How did you do it?

So people will have different ways.

You may have seen the numbers fly past in your mind,

you might have seen them flip over like a calendar.

Some people hear their own voice speaking the numbers,

that's what I do, that's what works for me,

and other people might even move their bodies,

or count on their fingers or even count their teeth someone told me once.

Tip 4, 'P' is for props.

Almost whatever you do with them will lift the audience's attention.

In fact sometimes if you have a relevant prop

even just holding it and looking intently at it will make the audience

interested in it.

But obviously you can use them to explain visually something

that's quite abstract, so even a simple ruler can be used to explain some

physics in a visual way.

So I'm going to use this ruler to explain how musical instruments work

now if you have a long piece of ruler - you might remember doing this at school - and you pluck it,

we make a vibration and it's quite slow because there's a lot of ruler.

If we make the ruler much shorter and we pluck it again

the note gets higher and the vibrations get faster,

so those two things are linked.

When you get a faster vibration you get a higher note.

So if you've got less of something,

less mass, it vibrates much much faster and you get a higher note.

And that's the basis of for all musical instruments really.

So even a simple ruler can be used to explain some quite complicated acoustics.

tip 5:'L' is for likeability.

Or in FameLab terms, charisma.

Now this is more than a popularity contest but likeability is very important for an audience

and how they take away your message.

So smile, make sure your passion comes across,

don't be too cocky or arrogant - audiences really don't like that,

and in fact in some cultures being self-deprecating about yourself can

really work well, but make sure your audience feel like the most important

people in the room, because they will love you for it.

Tip 6, 'E, is for end well.

Now a lot of people think hard about their opening,

but sometimes they forget to have a strong ending and making sort of drift off.

If you've started with a question, make sure you end by answering that question

so you've come full circle.

Perhaps you can give the audience

something they can do at home when they leave the room.

But whatever you plan to do, make sure you have a strong sentence in mind that you're heading for,

and at the very least don't forget to thank the audience so they know when to clap.

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Thanks for watching!