Professional paper
Clarity of Scientific Presentation: Prerequisite for the Communication Between Scientist and the Public
Ana Marušić
Aleksandra Mišak
Matko Marušić
Abstract
most problems in communication between scientists and the general public
could be avoided if scientists underwent training in communication skills early
in their careers. Unfortunately, such training is ignored by most university
curricula. Scientists are primarily trained to become dexterous in the technical
aspects of science, whereas the acquisition of communication skills is almost
completely overlooked, despite the fact that communication and clear presentation
of research results is a constituent part of scientific work. Above all,
scientists are evaluated according the number and quality of their scientific
publications, which largely depends on their skill in presenting their research
data to their colleagues in a clear and comprehensible way. We present the
theoretical framework for understanding the confounding factors that hamper
communication among scientists and between scientists and the general public.
Poor or non-existent systematic teaching of scientific methodology, low
academic criteria, and low quality of the journals are the main confounding
factors affecting scientific communication in a small scientific and academic
community. We describe the example of the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ),
which while struggling (successfully) to become an internationally recognized
journal made an effort to teach its authors the principles of scientific communication
and to institute an author-helpful policy of manuscript review. This
experience helped us realize that the writing/communication skills should be taught as early as possible, i.e., to undergraduate students – future medical researchers.
With the support of the Zagreb University School of Medicine, we
introduced a compulsory undergraduate course in scientific research in medicine,
while the second-year students are taught the principles and ethics of
scientific research, access to literature and citation databases, critical reading
of scientific articles, and application of medical statistics in practice. In addition,
they are taught about the principles of scientific writing and the importance
of clarity and simplicity in presenting scientific research.
Keywords
communication skills; scientific communication; education of the authors; principles of communication in science; writing of scientific paper; scientific work in biomedicine
Hrčak ID:
23346
URI
Publication date:
26.11.2002.
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