What the experts are saying about Explaining Research: ...a
fabulous guide for scientists seeking to communicate the fruits of
their labours.... Meredith offers stacks of advice on everything from
creating a great website and crafting a well-written press release to
preparing online videos and writing a blog. It is inspiring stuff, yet
rooted in reality... Physics World June 2, 2010
... an
excellent guidebook, full of practical tips and advice and, just as
important, key things to avoid and illustrations of how not to do it, so
that readers can, as the subheading says, 'reach key audiences to
advance their research'. Chemistry World May 2010
It is so important for scientists and engineers to communicate their work to the public no matter what field they are in. Explaining Research provides great advice to those new to the experience, and there's opportunity for the more experienced among us to learn, too. Peter Agre, M.D. Nobel Laureate and President, AAAS
What every scientist needs—a communication coach who gives you the tools to succeed while simultaneously urging you forward and cheering you on. The book is full of hard-won practical advice, drawn not just from Meredith's own experience but from interviews with leading practitioners. Meredith couples this with exhortations to do better, to commit yourself to communicating your science, to serving society by helping it understand science better. I'm already recommending this book to my students and colleagues. Bruce Lewenstein Professor of Science Communication, Cornell University
Explaining Research delivers all that it promises and more—the more being that it's a must-have, must-read not only for its primary target audience, scientists, researchers and engineers, but also, given the new media landscape, for just about anyone eager to enhance his/her science communications skills (be it as aspiring journalist, public information specialist or educator). This crisply written guide, a melding of the expert knowledge the author acquired in his four decades and more as a distinguished science writer and outstanding PIO for several of the nation's outstanding research centers and the wisdom gleaned from the bevy of first-rate, ultra-savvy colleagues he interviewed for this project, yields a cascade of superb practical tips and essential lessons on how to shape the telling and get word out about the saga of scientific exploration and discovery to a slew of constituencies, both professional and lay, via multiple information conduits. Do yourself a career-enriching favor and get it. Ben Patrusky Executive Director, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing
Dennis Meredith's book is must reading for anyone tasked with helping scientists explain their research to the media. It's a thorough and insightful survey of the problems that confound the process when practiced by people who don't understand the needs of science journalists or the nuances of the profession. He provides the straight story of how it all works in the real world. Readers who pay attention will improve their chances of making it work well. Tom Siegfried Editor, Science News
If you're a scientist and you receive a call or e-mail from the news media, should you talk to them? The decision you make could save or wreck your reputation, as well as your institution's. This excellent book by one of the nation's most revered science communicators—a man known affectionately, and by face, to every leading science journalist worthy of the name—reveals to scientists the benefits and hazards of "going public" and how to prepare for them. I do not exaggerate when I say that Carl Sagan, that unrivaled maestro of science (and self-) salesmanship, could have profited from this book. It is more than a career guidebook, however. It also contains useful —even juicy—anecdotes about, and insights into, the values, cognitive processes, and social dynamics of the mass media, many of which will amuse and enlighten academic specialists in those topics. And a few journalists might blush in recognition, too. Keay Davidson Author, Carl Sagan: A Life
