Sharing Our Science

How to Write and Speak STEM

Brandon R. Brown

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9780262376419
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy & Ethics in Science

In Sharing Our Science, scientist-turned-writing teacher Brandon Brown offers an eminently useful guidebook for STEM practitioners looking to communicate their technical work to either a technical or a broader audience. Professionals are increasingly required to communicate their work through blogs, podcasts, and newsletters and to submit to traditional media. After seeing his colleagues struggle to find a writing guide that tackled the unique challenges of writing and speaking about scientific topics, Brown set out to write the definitive handbook to assist STEM students, scientists, engineers, and tech workers alike.

In this practical and relevant book, Brown uses his experience as a proven science communicator to cover three levels of writing: fundamental craft considerations, such as narrative tension, structure, sentences, and audience; unique scientific considerations, such as conveying numbers and utilizing metaphors; and finally, social considerations, such as public speaking and writing inside and outside of silos. In place of a reference manual, Brown's engaging narrative guide clarifies the fundamental principles that impact all scientific communication tasks, from white papers and slide decks to Zoom meetings and emails. Sharing Our Science represents the culmination of a lifetime of writing, research, and teaching that will enrich scientists' careers and illuminate the ways in which science is done and conveyed to the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1 Me, You, and This Book
• 2 Tension
• 3 Structure: Mapping the Reader’s Path
• 4 Audience: For Whom the Keys Click
• 4.5 Prep Talk and Pep Talk
• 5 Improving Sentences
• 6 Science-Specific Considerations
• 7 Numbers on the Brain
• 8 Details and Anecdotes
• 9 The Pros and Cons of Metaphor
• 10 Speaking Science
• 11 STEM Phenotypes
• 12 Communicating at Different Social Scales
• 13 Communicating Calamity
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Fixing Example Sentences
• Notes
• Index