Tuesday 9 July 2013

How Do People Read Your Research?

People may nod at you and say 'yes, hmm, very interesting', but do they understand what you are saying (in a satisfying way)? I would like to know if someone could read something of mine, write down the key points and then explain them back to me in a way that I recognised. It needn't be a regurgitation (which is not what I do when I read the work of others) but I'd like to think that they took the key points I tried to convey, with no major misinterpretations. That's one sensible interpretation of 'impact', isn't it? So, for me, these drawings by @ZasCreativeBag are excellent. A drawing also condenses an argument - and puts all the points together in one page - in a way that might take me 1000-2000 words. They may not convey the same points entirely, but they do a decent job of reinforcing the argument (I hope).

Here (with a longer explanation) are some earlier examples (I did not get the grant!) and the most recent example is below (for the blogpost, see here)