The great divide between science & communication needs to bridged effectively & quickly. The reason why bridging the gap is of utmost importance is because science & technology touch our lives in a million ways everyday and billions of people are blissfully unaware of how science & technology are redefining & reshaping not just our lives but also our choices & decisions. The choices & decisions we make leave an impact on us, our near & dear ones & also on our society.
The need of the hour for our planet isn't just literates but people who are knowledgeable about the consequences of their actions. I say, keeping ourselves informed is our responsibility. It is therefore imperative to make wise decisions and we can make wise and sound decisions only if we are educated and equipped with knowledge & knowledge comes from knowing about science & technology and people can know about science & technology only if it is readable & makes sense to them. It's a vicious circle!
How the gap can be bridged?
For the starters, every person should engage in decoding the knowledge he or she has accumulated in the due course of their lives and present it to people in a simple manner. One could decode medical technology, health science, bio & nano technologies, information & computer technologies, mathematics, economics, finance, business strategies, politics, religion, philosophy, mythology and so on. Universities and their departments engaging in research should actively communicate their research, government departments should engage in communicating their policies/ research effectively to the common public and so should every public owned research company and more importantly, the print and television media should play a pro-active role in bringing science closer to the masses.
The 4C's of science communication: After having read some really complicated science based articles, mostly for the language in which they were written, I kept dwelling on how to improvise them and rewrite them for whom it was originally intended.
After pondering enough, I had come up with a concept I'd like to call 'The 4C's of Science Communication'.
I feel every science article, in order to be communicated effectively to the masses should be built on the foundation of the 4C's. This rule makes communicating science easy not just for the writers but also for the readers.
The 4C's are- Convey, Complete, Clear & Conclusive.
Convey- The article should convey the message or the main point. The article is pointless if it fails to project the key or salient features of the topic. The premise should be clearly reflected in the article.
Complete- The article should be complete, without leaving any loopholes or gaps in the article. Every aspect/ idea introduced in the topic should be explained in detail. Literarily speaking, the reader shouldn't have a nagging sense of incompleteness after finishing the article, because some topics, techniques or words which were introduced in the article weren't explained.
Clear- The language used while writing should be simple. Even a complex technique should be communicated in an uncomplicated manner. There should be no ambiguity whatsoever in the language used.
Conclusive- Ever read a story/ novel or watched a movie with no proper ending? It was really frustrating right? That's exactly the feeling the readers would get if the article has no proper conclusion. Giving the article a befitting conclusion gives it an impression of being a wholesome article.
Fig: The 4C's of Science Communication.
Having known about the blog & what science communication is all about (including the issues plaguing it and the possible ways to overcome them), I'd like to introduce you all to the science based articles I've written. Happy reading!
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