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Popularizing Research Findings. Olga A. Pilkington English Department Undergraduate Research Office. Essential Parts of a Popularization. How: Narrative Who: Scientists and the Reader presented as fictional characters What: Terminology. Narrative Structure.
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Popularizing Research Findings Olga A. Pilkington English Department Undergraduate Research Office
Essential Parts of a Popularization • How: Narrative • Who: Scientists and the Reader presented as fictional characters • What: Terminology
Narrative Structure • Narrative—a chronological sequence of events involving a character from whose experiences we can learn. • Research article: a chronological sequence of events • Literary narrative: involving a character from whose experiences we can learn
Why Narrative? Pros: • Natural predisposition/ease of production • Effectiveness • Expectedness Cons: • Positive bias Alternative: • Dialogue
Example 1 Michio Kaku, “Resveratrol” from Physics of the Future, 2011.
Literary Narrative in the World of Science Scientists and the reader become characters: • Presented discourse: speech, thoughts, and writing of narrative participants AKA reported speech, quotes, paraphrases
Creating Characters out of Scientists “People are quite capable of ‘reporting’ things that their reportees never said.” (Michael Toolan, Narrative, 2001: 128)
Examples • … it was, he [Rutherford] remarked, as startling as if a bullet were to bounce off a sheet of tissue paper. Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way,1988: 256 • It was as if, he [Rutherford] said, he had fired a fifteen-inch shell at a sheet of paper and it rebounded into his lap. Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, 2003: 139-140
Example 2 Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality, 2011.
Reader as Character Hypothetical Direct Speech assigned to a reader-character: The reader speaks for herself, and becomes essentially another character in the story. Used primarily in thought experiments. See example 3.
Scientific Terminology in a Popular Text Definitional Strings: A definitional string introduces the scientific term up front and then supplements the traditional definition with more creative and non-specialist friendly approaches. Example 4, from Macrus du Sautoy, The Number Mysteries, 2010.
Bottom Line • Tell a story (narrative structure). • Make the scientists you are talking about and the reader characters in it (presented discourse). • When using scientific terminology, include multiple definitions of the same term—target readers of various knowledge levels (definitional strings).
