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Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Formal training in communicating science to a general audience is not traditionally included in graduate and postdoctoral-level training programs. However, the ability to effectively communicate science is increasingly recognized as a responsibility of professional scientists. We describe a science...

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Autores principales: McCartney, Melissa, Childers, Chazman, Baiduc, Rachael R., Barnicle, Kitch
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society of Microbiology 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5969403/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29904517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v19i1.1439
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author McCartney, Melissa
Childers, Chazman
Baiduc, Rachael R.
Barnicle, Kitch
author_facet McCartney, Melissa
Childers, Chazman
Baiduc, Rachael R.
Barnicle, Kitch
author_sort McCartney, Melissa
collection PubMed
description Formal training in communicating science to a general audience is not traditionally included in graduate and postdoctoral-level training programs. However, the ability to effectively communicate science is increasingly recognized as a responsibility of professional scientists. We describe a science communication professional development opportunity in which scientists at the graduate-level and above annotate primary scientific literature, effectively translating complex research into an accessible educational tool for undergraduate students. We examined different types of annotator training, each with its own populations and evaluation methods, and surveyed participants about why they participated, the confidence they have in their self-reported science communication skills, and how they plan to leverage this experience to advance their science careers. Additionally, to confirm that annotators were successful in their goal of making the original research article easier to read, we performed a readability analysis on written annotations and compared that with the original text of the published paper. We found that both types of annotator training led to a gain in participants’ self-reported confidence in their science communication skills. Also, the annotations were significantly more readable than the original paper, indicating that the training was effective. The results of this work highlight the potential of annotator training to serve as a value-added component of scientific training at and above the graduate level.
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spelling pubmed-59694032018-06-14 Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs McCartney, Melissa Childers, Chazman Baiduc, Rachael R. Barnicle, Kitch J Microbiol Biol Educ Science Communication Formal training in communicating science to a general audience is not traditionally included in graduate and postdoctoral-level training programs. However, the ability to effectively communicate science is increasingly recognized as a responsibility of professional scientists. We describe a science communication professional development opportunity in which scientists at the graduate-level and above annotate primary scientific literature, effectively translating complex research into an accessible educational tool for undergraduate students. We examined different types of annotator training, each with its own populations and evaluation methods, and surveyed participants about why they participated, the confidence they have in their self-reported science communication skills, and how they plan to leverage this experience to advance their science careers. Additionally, to confirm that annotators were successful in their goal of making the original research article easier to read, we performed a readability analysis on written annotations and compared that with the original text of the published paper. We found that both types of annotator training led to a gain in participants’ self-reported confidence in their science communication skills. Also, the annotations were significantly more readable than the original paper, indicating that the training was effective. The results of this work highlight the potential of annotator training to serve as a value-added component of scientific training at and above the graduate level. American Society of Microbiology 2018-03-30 /pmc/articles/PMC5969403/ /pubmed/29904517 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v19i1.1439 Text en ©2018 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
spellingShingle Science Communication
McCartney, Melissa
Childers, Chazman
Baiduc, Rachael R.
Barnicle, Kitch
Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title_full Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title_fullStr Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title_full_unstemmed Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title_short Annotated Primary Literature: A Professional Development Opportunity in Science Communication for Graduate Students and Postdocs
title_sort annotated primary literature: a professional development opportunity in science communication for graduate students and postdocs
topic Science Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5969403/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29904517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v19i1.1439
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