By Cleo Xu ’26
Sitting on the chairs in upper left Commons, hand poised above my keyboard, I realized that I had no idea how to write a scientific article.
With a background in writing fiction, I was drawn to journalism because it would be an opportunity to interact with the people whose human emotions, motives, and conditions are central to my imaginative plots. From the beginning, I found interviewing a more appealing process than typing the words. I wanted to meet people with novel thoughts, interesting takes, and equal if not more passion for the same thing I do: science and technology.
Writing for Andover Science & Tech Review was everything I had expected and everything I hadn’t. I was qualified enough to understand a student’s research even if some difficult mathematics were involved; I was happy to listen to someone go on for hours on a particular topic that interests them. But when it came to sitting down and drafting the article, I was again that same person sitting in Commons, unsure of how to begin, undecided of what to write.
Accustomed to crafting short stories, I approached writing in a way that suited me the best. But since I am now writing about the works of others, I have to consider not just what works for me, but rather if my personal voice was too strong to accurately describe a student project; if I was focusing too much on one area and neglecting what mattered more to my interviewee.
Another distinction comes from the broader audience I am writing for. Not only do I have to represent students’ works subjectively and honestly — I also have to engage the audience, to make the topic digestible, enjoyable, and perhaps even interesting. Drawing from my experience in writing fiction, I know that writing a good article means so much more than just communicating the information: it is also about conveying the excitement of novel research and sharing the love for learning.
It was difficult to stay true to myself, true to the interview, and true to the audience, especially when the student research is advanced. How could I present the information so even a layperson could understand and wouldn’t lose interest? This is a question I often ask myself during the writing process. Of course, I have to first understand the topic myself to even begin such a formidable task. But more practically, how can I adjust my language, my style, and even my tone to ease the reading for the audience? Only when I had asked myself this question did I realize that I was never taught how to do so.
Scientific communication is an under-taught subject — an under-taught yet essential subject that does not appear on the school’s curriculum. One must hope they come across enough scattered, good articles on science to learn a few skills and techniques. Even pronouncing the phrase “scientific communication” sounds oxymoronic. Science and communication? A divide between STEM and Humanities is ingrained in our misconceptions/conceptions. Somehow, science is supposed to be silent. After all, scientists don’t speak through words — their works speak for them. The human language only taints the facts and obscures reality.
But is that true? No language is flawless or capable of the utmost accuracy in conveying information. But how else can information be shared if not through the imperfect yet powerful human language? The attempt for communication, perhaps, is never to fully capture the objective truth in science, but to get close to it — to be as close as possible.
The need for science communication is a great one. What happens when the general public is detached from information regarding scientific and technological progress in a society that relies on them? What happens when communication of that information is solely conveyed by the layperson? The people intimately involved in the fields also happen to be the ones, ironically, who were never properly taught to communicate the work they are doing and the ideas they have.
Some fear the prospect that Large Language Models might one day replace human writers, but few see the probable future of a diminishing community of science communicators.
In fact, good communication of STEM knowledge is not only helpful to the audience but also beneficial to the communicators themselves. Grant Sanderson, the host of the YouTube Channel 3Blue1Brown, observed that STEM majors often choose to do recognizably difficult problems not because they hold value to others but rather because they want to be perceived as more intelligent for solving them. But really, the true reward of being an educator, as Sanderson learned after working with Khan Academy, is when material suited for the student’s needs is received with gratitude. Instead of aiming for difficult content, students with a strong STEM background would do well to evaluate their work by assessing the value others may derive from it.
As much discomfort as I had experienced at the start, I was slowly beginning to realize that scientific writing of this kind is foremost for the audience, then for the interviewee, and lastly for myself. Letting control of a piece I had written was difficult. But then again, the objective of scientific communication is not to highlight the intelligence of the interviewee of the article, nor my mastery of the topic at hand, but to serve the readers, and to reach as broad an audience as one can.
Scientific communication is important precisely because it brings the scientific community into conversation with a broader audience — that the “utility,” as Sanderson put it, can also be enjoyed by the public, and that the recipients could reciprocate with positive feedback that helps to facilitate future research. The ability to communicate scientific knowledge concisely and engagingly may not be an essential survival tool to all, but valuable to many: those who have a strong desire to pursue STEM subjects in college, those who are interested in frontier technologies, and even those who like to write short stories and wish to connect to people in other disciplines.
Staring at my screen now, typing these words down, I am reminded of the unfinished article sitting in my Google Doc archive. I still have no idea what to write, or how to write. But maybe the best way to approach an article is not to struggle alone but to communicate with others: to talk to the interviewee, the editors, and perhaps most importantly — the very people who will end up reading my article.
To write about communication is to communicate.
Read more articles like this in our Fall 2024 Issue!
