Balancing Complexity and Simplicity: Marie’s Journey to Effective Science Communication

Marie, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in environmental systems from Germany, found an interactive science communication workshop at UC Merced to be enlightening. She often struggled to explain her research to her family due to language barriers and found the workshop’s emphasis on simplifying research for effective communication with non-experts particularly helpful.

Cham, the workshop leader, assigned an exercise where students had to describe their research using only the 1,000 most common words in English. Working with a partner, Marie realized the importance of striking a balance between simplicity and complexity in explaining research. She found that with mindful effort and the use of relatable analogies, she could convey complex ideas in a simple manner. The workshop highlighted the need to engage the audience while maintaining the credibility and depth of the research being shared.