Have you ever set out to drive to a familiar destination and then missed the turn-off because your mind was thinking of something besides the route?
Driving is a great example of a complex skill we’re able to perform almost automatically once we’ve mastered it. Another example is academic communication.
Once you’ve become used to speaking and writing in an academic style, you tend to communicate on autopilot. Sure, you may stop to consider whether you should use APA or Chicago as your citation style, but you probably don’t stop to wonder whether you should change the shape of your paragraphs or switch up the order in which you present your method and discussion sections.
To engage with audiences outside the academy, however, the first thing you need to do is recognize and reverse some of the communication habits you’ve taken such pains to learn.
No One is Born Speaking Like a Professor
If you’ve taught undergraduates, then you know it takes time to acclimatize to the conventions of scholarly discourse. New recruits to the academy need guidance to learn new vocabulary (like “conventions” and “scholarly discourse”), specific structures for presenting ideas (which vary from discipline to discipline), citation styles, and so on and so on.
The first year I taught introductory English, I was surprised to find that students who had aced English in high school seemed flummoxed by the essay assignments I gave them. Of course, they were even more surprised. The practices that had been drilled into them by well-meaning teachers failed them once they entered my classroom.
In high school, they’d learned a set of rules, which they assumed applied universally. For example, an essay always makes exactly three points. A thesis paragraph always starts with an extremely broad statement. (For example: “Since the dawn of time, humanity has struggled with the question of whether there is an afterlife.”) And the more words you use to say something the better, since achieving the word count is the number one indicator of success.
For many students, encountering the new rules of university essay writing is a rude awakening. Some never really get over the shock of seeing the expected A slide to a C+ and just give up.
But for those of us who successfully adapt, it becomes second nature to speak and write like our professors. After a while, for example, it becomes perfectly natural to avoid using “I” when discussing our ideas and to qualify each observation and conclusion we make. We tend to forget that we weren’t born communicating this carefully, in what many people would consider a stilted manner.
How to Return to Speaking in Lay Person
If you want to engage with audiences outside the academy, then your first step is to recognize that the communication habits that got you here won’t get you where you want to go. You’ll need to consciously unlearn some of the practices you now do almost unconsciously.
Here are five specific habits to reverse if you want non-experts to take you and your research seriously:
- Lighten up. Yes, I know this sounds ironic, doesn’t it? If you want people to trust your ideas and data, they first need to trust you, and we like people who are likeable. Rather than puffing up your language to make it sound polished and professional, use a conversational style, including some gentle humor if you think it will help build rapport.
- Convey confidence. In academic discourse, it’s important to show that you recognize the limitations of your conclusions. Acknowledging the boundaries of your knowledge boosts your credibility. But outside academia, qualifying a thought can sound like doubting it and make you seem unsure of yourself.
- Lose the long words. Outside the academy, you’ll find that few documents get read—more often they are skimmed. While you can’t water down certain technical terms, for the most part, try to choose short, everyday words over longer, more formal words.
- Lead with your main point. Academic readers are used to seeing ideas presented in a certain structure, and they’re keen to know the ins and outs of your methods. Non-academics want to get to your main idea quickly. What have you learned, or what are you recommending?
- Make it personal. The point of a research study, you might say, is to investigate a situation or phenomenon as objectively as possible. But if you want non-researchers to care about your findings, then you’ll need to make them relevant to your audience. Stories, examples, and personal testimonies help make your research relatable and meaningful.
How to Get Started
To unlearn the habits of academic communication, you need to travel back in time to your first days as an undergrad. Try to put yourself back on campus, back in the classrooms where you first became exposed to academic-speak.
- What aspects of academic discourse did you find challenging?
- How did you cope?
- What strategies did you consciously adopt to master the new way of communicating?
For example, as an undergrad I found it difficult to follow rambling lectures and seminar conversations that never seemed to arrive at a conclusion.
My way of coping was to go to the library and look up classic interpretations of the literary work the professor had been analyzing. I was then able to identify key themes and make sense of the disjointed commentary I’d received in class.
I consciously patterned my essays after books and articles I read outside of class. One strategy I adopted was calling out the inadequacies of an earlier interpretation and offering a revised interpretation, without using hostile language. (In this way, I learned the art of scholarly debate.)
Reflecting on your own learning journey as an academic will help you help non-expert audiences grab hold of the concepts and evidence you want them to get excited about. Turn back the clock, and you’ll discover that communicating with lay people is more natural and easy than you might think.
Looking for some quick tips to help you transition from academic writing to business writing? Check out the free Flash Course Academic to Workplace Writing on the Learning Commons.
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