The following is a list of specific recommendations for giving a public science presentation to a lay audience, derived from Rachel Murdock’s comprehensive review paper on the topic. While my list is not comprehensive, I found these particular points– many of them direct quotes from the paper– to be particularly cogent and helpful.

• Establish relevance and importance of the science being communicated
  • Create identification with the audience by knowing the audience as well as possible
  • Emphasize values, goals, and/or experiences that the scientist speaker and the audience member may have in common. Some of the values scientists may emphasize are hard work, trying many times to “get it right,” making life better for people, preserving an animal species or habitat, creating renewable energy sources so people are able to continue having the convenience of electrical power or the convenience of a personal automobile, experiencing the excitement of discovery, helping people who have surgeries enjoy better results or quicker recoveries, helping the military function more efficiently, and feeding the hungry in our own country or third world countries.
  • Describe how and why the science they pursue is relevant to the audience to whom they are
    speaking and encourage agreement about the joy and excitement of science through relating that excitement to the values of the listeners.
  • Avoid areas of disagreement, particularly at the beginning of the presentation, and
    instead focus on how the scientist’s point of view is “consistent with what they (the audience members) believe
• Communicating Complex Scientific Ideas Clearly for Public Audiences (Use of Language)
  • Utilize Communication Accommodation Theory, which explains communication as not only the exchange of information but also as a means of managing interpersonal and intercultural communication
  • Scientists speaking to a public audiences can improve their language use by imagining themselves being liked an admired by the lay audience to whom they are speaking and using the language that will help them accomplish that goal.
  • Refer to and demonstrate objects, people, and places the audience is familiar with — such as deserts, fruit, European villages, and baseball games (instead of labs, measuring equipment, or data gathering in scientific settings).
  • instead of focusing on the scientist’s need to be seen as a “true” or “valid” expert, scientists speaking to public audiences could change their focus to concentrating on the audience’s need to understand
  • The use of one consistent metaphor is more effective than the use of multiple metaphors
• Use Visual Aids, Especially Electronic Visual Aids, to Increase Audience Understanding
  • Utilize narrative flow through a presentation
  • Simplify charts or graphs (don’t screenshot a complicated graph from your journal article)
  • Use simple bar charts and line graphs
  • Scientists can also benefit from the advice to turn off the visual (usually by inserting a blank slide or using a remote control to shift to a black or white screen)
• Increase Audience Understanding of Science and Science Processes (Specifics About
  Science)
  • Simply mentioning the other members of a group that assisted the scientist when gathering data, showing a photo of several scientists working together on an experiment, or discussing how scientists talk together about how to solve thorny problems indicates to a public audience that science is a team effort.
  • Scientists can also tell an audience about how they gather data. For example, the Archeological Institute of America (AIA) suggests that scientists show and/or explain their methods of gathering data through bringing actual data gathering instruments to a presentation
  • Scientists often want to present all possibilities that could occur, but publics may not understand some of those possibilities as being remote or unlikely. Scientists should use layperson’s terms to make the actual levels of risk more apparent.
• Help Audiences See Scientists as Human, Trustworthy, and Approachable
  • Revelations that show a speaker to be vulnerable or fallible or that seem counter
    to the speaker’s self-interest are particularly effective in building a closeness between speaker and listener
  • Self-disclosure may involve a scientist talking about his or her family, but for this
    construct of building trust between a scientist and the audience, the self-disclosure should
    involve the scientist talking about his/her science work. For example, the scientist might tell a story about an event that happened in the lab. One scientist talked about how surprised he and his partners were at how sticky a substance that they developed was. This disclosure made him seem more human and “real” to the audience while simultaneously expressing the “excitement of discovery” aspect of science and making him seem fallible but still competent.
  • Use collective, inclusive terms like “we” “our” and “us.”
  • Use immediacy techniques like the use of appropriate humor, moving physically closer to the audience, smiling at the audience, and looking directly at the audience.
• Engage with Public Audiences in Interactions and Conversations
  • Find ways to share the traditional authority of science with the public by inviting them to make decisions about what is discussed
  • Deliberately encourage the audience to speak, to question the speaker, and to engage in dialogue.
  • Scientists are encouraged to have the audience answer questions, through raise of hands
    or voice responses, during a presentation as well as after. Speakers can ask for brief personal experiences from audience members, have an audience member participate in a brief demonstration, or have an audience member touch and describe an artifact for the rest of the audience.