When planning your messages in advance, it helps to define the three to five key points that you want the listener/reader to take away from your communication.

How to choose just three points? Think again in terms of your audience, and what information they seek from you, in addition to what you'd like your audience to remember about your communication.

Peer-reviewed journal articles typically begin with detailed information about how the research was performed and conclude with the implications or significance of the finding. However, a public audience will expect you to explain the significance of the research and how it relates to their lives from the start, and then supply an appropriate level of detail that emphasizes the greater significance.

Once you define your key points, ask yourself - what is the right amount and type of information that supports these points? Think about how much detail is necessary. If you intend to communicate your research findings to a non-technical audience, limit the use of technical terms that you will then have to spend time/space explaining. In place of the specificity you might use in communications with other academics in your field, consider the need for accuracy without specificity when communicating with a more general audience. Often the very minute details are not needed or desired by your audience. If you spend too much time trying to communicate those details, you may lose the listener/reader’s attention, and they will not be able to recall your key points.

Finding ways to convey your messages as they relate to your audience is essential. Think about examples, stories, and analogies that can illustrate your key messages. Find stories and examples that fit with the audience’s experience, not necessarily your own. One way to do this is to test your analogies and stories with non-scientists, perhaps family or friends, in advance of using them in a more public communication.

Be conscious of what visuals will work best. If you’re preparing a public talk, will slides or multimedia images suit the audience’s needs? Or do you anticipate this will be a conversation with a smaller group where slides and visuals could be too formal?

Interested in learning more about planning messages? Watch Developing Your Message: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers, an online seminar produced by AAAS.