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Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling
Gold
Thursday, March 13, 2025 • Advancing Research 2025
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Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling
Speakers: Bruce Gillespie
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Summary

Making insight heard and acted upon is a persistent challenge for researchers, but adjacent fields, particularly journalism, have long mastered the balance between impactful communication and compassionate storytelling. We will explore how these practices can elevate researchers’ ability to amplify the voices of the communities they represent, helping their insights cut through the noise.

Key Insights

  • Use the inverted pyramid model to present the most important information first.

  • Traditional academic writing methods often bury key findings too deep in reports.

  • Engage your audience by sharing impactful user stories alongside research data.

  • Rank and distill your key findings for clarity and focus in presentations and reports.

  • Use grammatically simple sentences to enhance readability and understanding.

  • Adopt an active voice to make your writing clearer and more direct.

  • Being specific improves the trustworthiness of your data and insights.

  • Choose plain language over jargon to ensure wide comprehensibility among audiences.

  • Transitioning to a more direct communication style can increase team engagement and discussion.

  • Start implementing these techniques with smaller communications to build familiarity.

Notable Quotes

"You want your findings to have greater impact with your teams, your stakeholders, and your clients."

"Communicating in an academic or marketing way really does a disservice to your work."

"We shouldn't make our colleagues work really hard to figure out what we've learned."

"If you're doing it properly, you have automatically shared the most important information."

"This organizational principle doesn't mean you're dumbing anything down."

"It makes it easier for our audience to understand complex issues in a clear, direct way."

"Using plain everyday words helps meet people where they're at."

"Do it on paper, do it on a screen, do it physically in some way."

"When you share findings, adding user stories increases reader engagement."

"Writing should sound like you; it should be professional but still your voice."

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