Jan 12, 2011
How and why to write about scientific research
Dr Frank Burnet is Emeritus Professor of Science Communication and has kindly made available for free download his two ebooks on the subject.
Burnet began his career as a biochemistry lecturer, moving to the University of the West of England in Bristol in 1996, He was appointed the first Professor of Science Communication in the UK in 2002. He was awarded the MBE for Science on the Buses in 2000 and became the founding co-director with Kathy Sykes of the Cheltenham Science Festival, also in 2002. In 2004, he led the team that launched the Bristol based Masters in Science Communication. He set up his own Consultancy in 2009
The two handbooks, now available for download from Sciencebase.com, are a component of masterclasses he delivers around the world to scientists and science communicators. He is making them widely available to help strengthen the bridges between science and society. Feel free to download them (as PDF files) at no cost and to take inspiration from Burnet’s many years of experience in science and science communication:
"Deceived Wisdom: Why What You Thought Was Right Is Wrong" from David Bradley. Available now on 
@Jan First thing I’d do if you’re hoping to improve communication is to get rid of Comic Sans Serif from your website! (I’m only half joking)
http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2009/05/11/friends-dont-let-friends-use-comic-sans/
I could really use a guide for communicating your subspecialty of science to other scientists! In my industry, we need to collaborate between specialties every day and it can be a challenge!
Many thanks for this comment. Your point is an excellent one. I have always viewed the Learning Pyramid as more likely to be based on intuition rather than quantitative research and included it in Taking Science to People because it makes the general point that not all learning experiences have the same long term impact on the learner, and that one way communication methods are likely to be less effective than two way methods, something which I learnt the hard way during my own professional journey from Bus Posters to dramas designed to trigger discussion, like Meet the Gene Machine. However that said I would not wish to be contributing to the dissemination of the Pyramid as hard data, and have therefore removed it and rewritten the text at the point where it appeared.
Thanks again.
Via email from Phillip Long:
I’m disappointed to read in the Taking Science to the People article a reference to the now thoroughly discredited learning retention pyramid. This has cropped up again and again since most of us want to believe this data represents something substantive and validating to our personal beliefs about ways people learn and retain knowledge. The reality is much more nuanced and in this case, just plain wrong.
There is no data behind this National Training Laboratories graphic. It’s in fact a very close approximation to the Edgar Dale Cone of Experience. The NTL actually wrote to say “Yes, we believe it to be accurate – but no, we no any longer have – nor can we find – the original research that supports the numbers.” So they think it’s right but there is no data to substantiate it. Not a ringing endorsement..
I am not writing to critique the paper citing this work, but to implore people to please check the data you believe is behind assertions you want to make. It does raise questions about what may be very well developed and important arguments made about communicating science. But to do so based on what is clearly spurious introductory context setting doesn’t do any of us any favours.
Thank you.
Phillip Long University of Queensland and MIT