It's Not Just About Jargon! A Toolkit for Effective Science Communication

Most scientists approach science communication from a deficit perspective and a desire to educate “the public” on topics they are passionate about. While formal science communication training is still a rarity in undergraduate and graduate physiology education in the United States, curricula that do exist will typically emphasize the translation of jargon into simpler statements. While this is an important skill to develop in budding science communicators, it offers an overly simplistic view of science communication. Choosing audience-appropriate vocabulary is only one component of effective communication. Unfortunately, in the current sociopolitical environment that science is shared into, it may even be a minor component, overshadowed by other factors such as (dis)trust, misinformation, political ideology, or competing interests. Effective communication is essential to the practice of science as well as the long-term preservation of science institutions. Accordingly, interdisciplinary communication was listed as one of the core competencies of biology education in AAAS’ landmark Vision and Change document, yet very little progress has been made on recommendations made over a decade ago. To address this, we are sharing a comprehensive framework that we have used to teach science communication to undergraduates, post-baccalaureates, graduate students, and early career scientists. This toolkit develops SciComm proficiency through focused reflection on six equally important aspects of effective science communication: 1) Intended Audience Who do I want to reach? What do we know about each other? 2) Communication Goal What do I want to accomplish? What should the audience do with this information? 3) Underlying Science What is the discovery, claim, or evidence? 4) Intended Message What makes it interesting or useful? Why? 5)Messenger Identity What makes me the right person to carry this message? 6) Rhetorical Strategy What will make the audience care and share? Here we share sample activities, best practices, pedagogical challenges, and assessments from our own courses. We aim to increase both the quantity and quality of formal science communication training in physiology education, and lower the barrier to entry for any scientist interested in becoming a SciComm practitioner. This work was partially supported by the Alan Bennett Health Policy fund at the University of Connecticut (JMR, JND), and the FASEB Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellowship (JMR) This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.