Making complex research concepts easily accessible to policymakers and practitioners can be challenging for researchers who have been trained to write for an academic audience. This is especially an important issue for school and district leaders who want to keep their staff abreast of key new developments in the field without intimidating or losing the interest of those staff members.
This new brief, “Going Public: Writing About Research in Everyday Language”, describes three techniques for writing more plainly about study design, measurement, and data analysis. The brief calls for:
1. Making concepts simpler. The brief shows how to use simple language to convey research concepts while ensuring they convey the same meaning.
2. Writing for the general reader. The brief calls for attention to what the reader really needs to know. Clarity about key messages can lead to simpler and more direct writing.
3. Writing to reduce misinterpretation. Writers can minimize the likelihood that readers will misinterpret research concepts by considering the possible areas of confusion and addressing them directly.
The brief includes a glossary that shows how to apply these approaches to writing about commonly used concepts in impact research, such as regression analysis and effect size.
For more information and the link to the full pdf of the report, please visit:
http://ies.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=REL2014051
