Lesson 3 : Making a Scientific Communication 3rd year (LMD)

Scientific communication is a means used to communicate scientific knowledge to people in the field
(researchers, professionals, scientists, students, etc.). It can be done orally (e.g. power-point presentations), in
writing (e.g. articles) or in hybrid (e.g. poster). There are different modes of scientific communication:
writing scientific papers, writing research proposals, extracting, searching and creating web pages. Scientific
communication requires a set of skills: computer and technical proficiency; organized thinking and ability to
abstract ideas; good mastery of language, and in the global context often in English; differentiating and
understanding the objectives of each communication mode (audience, clients, goals). Scientific
communication takes place mainly in scientific meetings (conferences, symposia, workshops etc.), scientific
journals (or magazines), and lecture series in scientific institutions (e.g., colloquia).

There are different formats of scientific communication. An abstract is one format. It is a brief
overview of the content of an article that provides details about the article. An abstract might be written by
the author of the article, as is the case with most professional journals, or might be contributed by
professional indexers, as is the case with many articles included in research databases. An abstract
summarizes, in one paragraph the major aspects of the entire paper in the following prescribed sequence: aim
of the study, hypothesis, means of research, and results. An Article is another example of scientific
communication. It is much shorter than a book; it takes up to 20 pages length. Articles can address any topic
that the author decides to explore like reviews or experimentation. Articles appear in newspapers, magazines,
trade publication, journals, and even in books. Because of their relative brevity, articles typically are used to
provide up-to-date information on a wide variety of topics. A volume, most journals and many magazines,
newsletters, and newspapers assign volume numbers to a year's worth or half a year's worth of issues. For
example, a journal that publishes four times a year (quarterly) might assign each yearly collection of four
issues a volume number to help identify which issues of the journal were published during a particular year.
Publications that publish more frequently than monthly might also assign volume numbers, but they might
change volume numbers mid year, so that there may be two volumes in any one publishing year. An Issue is
a single, regular publication of a journal, magazine, newspaper, newsletter, or trade publication. A magazine
or journal that publishes monthly will have twelve issues in a year. Newspapers might publish daily or
weekly. Issues are usually numbered, so a journal that publishes twelve issues in a year starting with January
will number each issue sequentially (issue 1, January; issue 2, February; issue 3, March; etc.). A Journal is a
regularly published collection of articles that focus on topics specific to a particular academic discipline or
profession. Journals might be published monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or even annually. The
most common publication frequency is monthly and quarterly. Journal articles are typically of substantial
length (often more than 10 pages) and usually reflect research, whether be surveys of existing research or
discussions of original research. Most journal articles will be prefaced with an abstract and will include
extensive documentation within the article or at the end of the article. Most research begins with a survey of
existing literature on a topic and proceeds with the development of new ideas or new research into a topic.
Articles are usually written by experts in their fields. Scientific journals are issued by publishing houses in
regular intervals (monthly, quarterly, bi-anually etc.) organized in volumes (one or more per year) and issues.
Each issue of a journal normally contains several articles. Articles are subject to peer assessment and are
selected on a competitive basis. Each journal has one or several editors, sometimes even a group of area
editors (the editorial board) selecting the reviewers for each article submitted and taking care of maintaining
certain quality standards. A Literature Review is an important part of nearly any research project, a
literature review consists of a survey of previously published or non-published materials that focus on a
particular subject under investigation. For example, a researcher looking into whether there is a relationship
between food and cognitive ability in elementary age students would begin by looking for articles, books, and
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Lesson 3 : Making a Scientific Communication 3rd year (LMD)
other materials that reflected previous research into this topic. The function of the review is to identify what
is already known about the topic and to provide a knowledge foundation for the current study. A Magazine is
regularly published collection of articles that might focus on any topic in general or on topics of interest to a
specific group, such as sports fans or music fans or home decorators. More commonly, magazines are
published weekly or monthly. Articles in magazines are typically written for the general reading public and
do not reflect in-depth research (an exception might be an investigative report written in a news magazine
that involved weeks or months of research and interviews to complete). Most magazine articles do not list
references and are written by the magazine's own staff writers. In general, magazine articles are easy to read,
are fairly brief in length, and may include illustrations or photographs. Magazines also rely heavily on
advertisements targeted to consumers as a source of revenue. A thesis is an original paper used for post
graduation (generally PhD), usually an original paper in which the researcher maintains a certain proposition,
makes hypotheses, tests them via an experimental or observational study and come to a conclusion with a set
of recommendations. A dissertation is a small thesis used for graduation (generally licence or master
degree), containing generally one hypothesis and easy means for data collection to test it because of the
constraints of time. A Book Review is usually a brief article that provides an evaluation and appreciation of a
book. A review might assess the importance of a book's contributions to a particular field of study or might
make recommendations to potential readers of the book. A Newsletter is a regularly published collection of
brief news articles of interest to members of a particular community. Professional associations might issue
newsletters to keep their membership up to date. Businesses and schools might issue newsletters to keep their
constituents up to date. Nearly any type of organization or society might have its own newsletter. Articles in
newsletters are typically brief. These are usually internal publications that have interest mainly to people who
participate in the activities of the issuing body. They are frequently used to inform members of an
organization of upcoming events. A Newspaper is a regularly published collection of fairly brief articles
that provide updates on current events and interests. Newspapers are generally published daily, weekly, and
bi-weekly. Most major newspapers publish daily, with expanded coverage on the weekends. Newspapers can
be national or international in focus or might be targeted strictly to a particular community or locality.
Newspaper articles are written largely by newspaper staff and editors and often do not provide authors'
names. Many of the articles appearing in national, international, and regional papers are written by various
wire service writers and are nationally or internationally syndicated. Newspapers rely on advertising for a
part of their income and might also include photographs and even full colour illustrations of photos. A
common feature of most newspapers is its editorial page, where the editors express opinions on timely topics
and invite their readers to submit their opinions. A Peer Reviewed/Refereed Journal uses subject experts
or "peers" to review articles being considered for publication. Reviewers will carefully examine articles to
ensure that they meet journal criteria for subject matter and style. The process ensures that articles are
appropriate to a particular journal and that they are of the highest quality.

As far as the types of scientific communication are concerned, there are three types: written
communication (e.g. E-mail, Resume/CV, Report, Journal Article, Review Article, Book); oral
communication (e.g. Lecture, Meeting, Presentation, Interview); and visual communication (e.g. Poster
Session, Lecture, Presentation). Concerning the writing style, written communications should be clear,
logical, and factual. Scientific communication has a special style, and is distinct from all other forms of
communication. It is formal and the information content is maximized. Difficult information must be made
understandable, and specialized vocabulary must be used. It should be precise and clear. The grammar should
be correct as with the sentence structure. There are some common words used in scientific communication
(e.g. assemble: together; basic: fundamental; mix: together; separated: apart from each other, etc.). Similarly,

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Lesson 3 : Making a Scientific Communication 3rd year (LMD)
abbreviations are allowed to make the text easier to read (e.g. "ie" is an abbreviation for the Latin "id est",
which means "that is", "eg" is an abbreviation for the Latin "exempli gratia", which means "for example".
However, abbreviations should be avoided unless when necessary, they should not be used in the abstract,
titles, introductions and conclusions.

Any scientific communication adopts what is referred to as “the scientific method”. The latter makes
careful observations of the world; Asks a question based on what has been seen; Propose some tentative
answers/hypotheses; Use the hypotheses to make predictions about new as yet unobserved data/phenomena;
Design experiments that will test the hypothesis; Collect new experimental data; Evaluate the hypothesis in
the light of new data; Accept, reject, or modify the hypothesis. Good scientific writing includes: the
statement of a hypothesis; the data that were obtained as you tested it; an evaluation of whether those data
support or refute your hypothesis.

Scientific communications is carefully structured to ensure effective communication. It generally has a

title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, summary, and reference sections. The
purpose of writing the title at an early stage is to clarify the author's aim and intentions. It accurately reflects
the content of the article. The title is the reader's first encounter with the paper and so it should be deeply
considered. The abstract appears at the head of should be informative. It is valuable for the reader. It gives an
idea about the whole article. The abstract, being brief and accurate, saves the readers time and effort. Then,
the scientist introduces what he is going to do, how and why, the materials he is going to use in his
experiments and the methods applied to arrive at his results. Finally, he discusses his results and arrives at his
findings and conclusions. This logical organization in scientific writing is part of the scientific way of
thinking which is concise, accurate, factual, logical and well-organized. This logical way of thinking is
reflected in the use of language. Scientific discourse also employs non-verbal items like charts, graphs,
tables, signs, diagrams, and symbols to serve several communicative functions.

References

1. Manthey, R. (2010). Techniques of Scientific Communication.

2. Presentation on scientific communication
3. Schreyer, D. Useful Tips for Scientific Communication

Tasks

1. Classify the different formats of scientific communication into: those written for general research
purposes and those written for academic research purposes.
2. Give other abbreviations that are allowed to be used in scientific communication.
3. Give an example for all the different formats of scientific communication in relation to your
discipline.

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