Mastering The Fine Art Of Writing Reports For Nonscientists

Being a good scientist has always meant staying abreast of new technological advancements, keeping up with the literature in one's field, and knowing when to call on the expertise of others. These days, more than ever before, it also means doing a lot of writing: in peer-reviewed journals, a prerequisite for advancement in one's career; and in grant proposals, a necessity of research life for many scientists. In addition to writing scientific papers and applications for funding, today's researchers are also frequently called on to provide written communications to nonscientists: accountants, public relations officers, personnel directors, and the like. For many researchers, reports to nonspecialists are more difficult to write than the most daunting grant application, because in communicating to people outside the field a scientist has to adapt his or her writing style to readers' needs and level of expertise. If you're the kind of person who finds this kind of writing an insufferable chore, you may find yourself wasting valuable research time by agonizing over these interdepartmental communications. You write, rewrite and your report still comes back from the reader with questions, or, worse, goes forward unread. The unread report is not just a waste of time; it is a threat to your organization, and even to your research itself. Accountants will review your budget request whether or not you help them by writing clearly and directly, anticipating their need for information and your budget may not be approved if your request is unclear. Your organization's publicist will not do an effective job of getting the word out about your research if your reports are ambiguous and full of jargon. A reader will tend to put a report aside if it is written with no thought to his or her need for information. Undoubtedly, you yourself have encountered this problem with some of the interdepartmental communications you have read. While perusing a report from the accounting department, for example, you may have wondered, "What impact will the 10 percent drop in accounts receivable have on my research?" It is important to bear in mind, however, that your communications to the accountants may be just as incomprehensible to them as their papers are to you. To circumvent this problem, it is useful to give some thought to your readers before you begin to write. Your readers turn to reports (or any written material, for that matter) with a need for specific information. The task for you, the writer, is to determine what the needed information is and to provide it in the most helpful way possible. For starters, find out who has to read what you write. Once you have a name or job title, ask yourself three questions: What does my reader need to know? Many communication situations are problem-centered: The reader's task is to determine whether your equipment is cost-effective, or to let the public know about recent discoveries. The status quo will change once that person has received your report. If you have done your job, then new equipment will arrive, or the public will support the research effort. On the other hand, a poorly written report could mean no new equipment or a loss of public support. To determine the content of your report, it may be helpful to think through the communication situation you are faced with, and to consider what your reader will use your information for, before you sit down to write. Are you writing from a proactive or reactive standpoint that is, are you initiating communication or responding? If proactive, then what are the key pieces of information your reader needs to grant your request? If reactive, why does the reader want your information? Like many writers in other fields, scientists often are consumed with interest in their own disciplines and tend to tell their readers more than they need to know. Rarely will an auditor want you to tell all you know about lipoprotein. Rather, you may be expected to write a memo explaining how a particular expenditure applies to your research into lipoproteins and fat-soluble vitamins. How can I help my reader to understand? As you know, cost accounting has its own vocabulary and theory, which can be as arcane as those of biophysics and just as incomprehensible to anyone outside the field. When you write a report to be read by nonspecialists, your readers usually have little knowledge of your field, so you have to help them understand the material. What if, when asked to provide a statement about the purpose of a recent study you were doing, you produced the following: "The purpose of the study reported here was the establishment of an unsophisticated in vitro system, based on measurement of the rate of release of growth hormone from isolated fragments of anterior pituitary from rats, which could provide a suitable technique for further elucidation of the mechanisms by which regulation of the growth hormone secretory process in the cells of the anterior pituitary may be achieved." This paragraph is perfectly appropriate for a peer-reviewed journal and, in fact, it actually appeared in a journal article. But it misses the mark as a communication to a nonspecialist. In a paragraph like this, what do you assume your reader knows about the work? Does he or she actually know the technical terms (in vitro, posterior, pituitary, growth hormone secretory, and so on)? How can a lay reader respond, except to ask for an explanation? Will you have the time - or the will - to write it? Helping your reader to understand means defining terms, providing analogies, giving examples from outside the lab, simplifying concepts, and clarifying graphs and tables. No one is asking that you oversimplify to the point of distorting what you mean. Just be aware that, although your reader may know the meaning of individual words in your reports, the combinations may be mysterious. Researchers in animal science know what "heavy beef heart mitochondria protein" is, but who does? Many readers will wonder whether the "heavy" modifies "beef" or "heart" or "protein" or what. No matter how clear the concepts are to you, you are not the reader, and your terms may be completely meaningless to that person. When communication fails, frequently the problem is that the writer failed to help the reader understand the message. What do I want my reader to do with the information? When you consider what action you expect from your reader, you also have to consider what persuasive elements to use. For example, the most important persuasive element is your credibility as a scientist. This credibility certainly carries the day when you are discussing scientific issues. But what content of your report is nonscientific - such as a request for additional staff? In cases like this, you need other approaches. You can appeal to your reader through logic. To be most effective, organize your presentation as a logical arrangement of the facts that lead to the inevitable conclusion that you need help or money. The problem here is what form of logic to use. Does your reader agree that the most logical thing to do is hire more people? From a science standpoint, the request may be completely logical. But what about from a larger, organizational point of view? Increasing your budget for staff salaries could mean reducing funding for other work. To determine the best approach, you will have to know your reader. What in your qualifications will he or she consider important? What kind of logical appeal will work? It all comes back to providing the information in a form that the reader can easily understand. Thomas L. Warren is a director of the Technical Writing Program and coordinator of graduate studies in English at Oklahoma State University. He has published many articles on technical communication, spoken to many diverse groups on effective communication, and written a self-help course in report writing for the American Management Association.

Mastering The Fine Art Of Writing Reports For Nonscientists

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