Writing for the Public: Crafting a Story

Posted by Lesley McCollum

There are plenty of issues to tackle for writing a journal article manuscript, but structure is not one of them. We are all too familiar with the IMRAD structure. If you want to write about your research for the public though, go ahead and throw those rules out the window. Academics read journal articles to learn information - it doesn’t matter the article is dull and tedious to read, its purpose isn’t to entertain. The rest of the public however, has plenty of sources for information, and will stick with one that is both informative and entertaining. So while a story for the public doesn’t have the rigid rules of the IMRAD format, structure is still key to a story’s success. Here are a few ideas for structuring your story:

Inverted pyramid

The inverted pyramid is the most traditional structure for news stories and can be applied to telling a science story. The style starts with the big picture, then narrows to more specific detail. It’s efficient for providing readers with the most interesting and important information up front, then expanding into further detail as the article progresses. It lets readers get the information they are looking for, then decide if they

want to learn more or move on.

Zig zag or Parallel stories

Reading about scientific research can be dense. Try alternating between details of a study and anecdotes from the researchers. Were multiple people working on the same question which led to an interesting collaboration or competition? Structure your article as two parallel stories that meet later on. You’ll hear more about incorporating narrative in a future post, but this style helps connect readers to your story and keep them interested.

Chronological

Writing a story in chronological order may sound boring, but it makes sense and is easy for readers to follow. This could be from a historical perspective, or the researcher’s individual story. Often in research, one experiment leads to another that ultimately leads to the findings that you are writing about. Or a conversation sparked an idea that led to the important experiments. Use that progression of events to structure your story.

What story structure do you find most effective for writing about science for the public?

[Image from Flickr user ClaraDon used under Creative Commons Licensing]