Crackle and Fizz: Essential Communication and Pitching Skills for Scientists

This book is a guide to narrative skills, the currency of the creative industries. It shows research scientists how to harness story-telling principles to make their complex and technical content easier to communicate and more fulfilling for their audience.Readers discover how the eight narrative ingredients — Audience, Lure, Change, World, Character, Big Hook, Plot and Structure — are relevant to anyone wanting to convey information or ideas clearly, and how the different ingredients can be emphasised and honed for specific purposes: to build a story, deliver results, to sell an idea, or even to sell oneself.There are tailored exercises to inspire readers to generate creative ideas relevant to their own work, and questions to develop the best ideas to use for their posters, seminar talks, public engagement presentations or grant proposals. The ultimate goal is to enable readers to shape their ideas, information and content so that it crackles and fizzes with relevance for their intended audience.

This book is a guide to narrative skills, the currency of the creative industries. It shows research scientists how to harness story-telling principles to make their complex and technical content easier to communicate and more fulfilling for their audience.

Readers discover how the eight narrative ingredients Audience, Lure, Change, World, Character, Big Hook, Plot and Structure are relevant to anyone wanting to convey information or ideas clearly, and how the different ingredients can be emphasised and honed for specific purposes: to build a story, deliver results, to sell an idea, or even to sell oneself.

There are tailored exercises to inspire readers to generate creative ideas relevant to their own work, and questions to develop the best ideas to use for their posters, seminar talks, public engagement presentations or grant proposals. The ultimate goal is to enable readers to shape their ideas, information and content so that it crackles and fizzes with relevance for their intended audience.