While it might seem that topics ranging from neuroscience and psychology to conservation are vastly unrelated, across all science and technical writing, the primary challenge is communicating complex information and ideas clearly.
In collaborative articles Bad News for the Highly Intelligent and Cognitive Ability and Vulnerability to Fake News, we worked to explain complex psychological processes accessibly and in an engaging manner. One of the best ways to do this was to relate the content to ideas and events the audience was already familiar with such as current events and popular culture.
Conservation articles presented similar challenges. In Our Eminent Ecologists Experience, Evan Kutz and I wrote on the research of Dr. Sarah Hobbie and Dr. Jaques Finlay, both hailing from University of Minnesota, as they presented it at the Kellogg Biological Station in July 2017. This piece covered a range of topics, from how dog food affects the environment to how increased channel erosion can lead to eutrophication of lakes and streams. On a somewhat different note, the article What’s Happening to Your Waste employs a narrative approach to discussing issues of environmental science and justice in Detroit.
Still other conservation issues, such as the politics and importance of freshwater in Michigan, are difficult to cover in a traditional blog post and are better presented in list form. The article Ten Ways to Keep Michigan Pure discusses threats to the Great Lakes Watershed and involved more than simply writing a list; it was also important to share the article to raise awareness about the issue.
Pictured above is an Instagram post prompting readers to both to the article itself and to the publishing organization.
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