Writing for a Non-Psych Audience

Three Things You Can do to Make Your Data Tables More Visual

Tables that contain a lot of data can be difficult to understand. This article from PolicyViz.com shows a few ways to make that information more manageable by simplifying information, highlighting key pieces, and using the right type of chart. You can find the full article here.

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Developing a Good Elevator Pitch

Being able to communicate your study’s purpose quickly and effectively is important. Often we need to share our science with non-experts, so being able to capture others’ interest in an engaging way from the start, helps them see the value of our work. Elevator pitches are traditionally thought of in the context of a job

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Video: Misunderstanding Scientific Studies (with John Oliver)

On this short (4:05) clip from Last Week Tonight, John Oliver outlines how to be a better consumer of scientific information (e.g., don’t give too much significance to individual studies) and how communication to the public can misinterpret findings altogether.

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Investigating Claims Made by the Media

This assignment helps students practice scientific literacy and literature searches. Students find a media posting that makes a psychology-related scientific claim and a peer-reviewed research article that speaks to that claim. Students then write an essay evaluating the media claim based on the scientific conclusions. Please click here for the file.

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Video: Using PowerPoint To Make Infographics

Video (2:36) from Burn to Learn described as follows, “This video shows you how to make #INFOGRAPHICS only using #POWERPOINT, Burn to learn focuses on a simple way to teach you how to use powerpoint shapes to turn them into nice and professional infographics.” Want to learn more about PowerPoint? Click here for a playlist

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Simple Rules for Concise Scientific Writing

A central feature of scientific writing is clear and concise prose. This paper by Scott Hotaling (follow him on Twitter) provides a set of easy to follow rules to follow when writing research papers. Though this isn’t specifically for psychology or APA style papers, his suggestions are fantastic general tips for becoming a better writer.

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Activity: Preparing an Elevator Pitch For Your Research

The activity has students develop, practice, and share an “elevator pitch” of their own original research project. Research activity is often something that makes students stand out for job or graduate school positions. To effectively use their research experience, students need to clearly summarize their research projects in a finite amount of time. This is

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