Writing for kids makes us better science writers for adults
One of the senior scientists in our workshop group recently found himself in the impromptu situation of sitting down for a video interview about his complex research on mitochondrial diseases—but the interviewer was a child.
The episode reminded us of the famous WIRED magazine video series "5 Levels", in which "an expert scientist explains a high-level subject in five different layers of complexity—first to a child, then a teenager, then an undergrad majoring in the same subject, a grad student and, finally, a colleague."
We decided to do our own, simpler version of this exercise this month. A number of us—scientists and writers alike—tried writing a short science explainer in two different versions, for two different audiences:
- 1. child
- 2. general adult
First we watched and workshopped the impromptu 5-minute video discussion of our colleague being interviewed by a child, and used that to think together about how trying to communicate with children could unlock creative approaches to writing about science for non-expert audiences generally—especially by using everyday metaphors and easy-to-relate schemas. Then we workshopped our own texts. It was fun—and hard! Trying to write for kids really forced us to find new ways to be sharp, imaginative, and effective as communicators.
One key takeaway was that a compelling basic story, that makes the consequences immediately clear, helps grab attention.
Another takeaway was to avoid what science-writing guru Joshua Schimel calls "mid-level abstractions"—basically, the kind of specialized terminology that scientists love. On the ladder of abstraction, Schimel advises that we avoid the middle and "go up to show why, and down to show how"—in other words, combine big ideas that are easy to understand with concrete objects that are easy to visualize.
We also felt inspired by the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat's very popular series answering "Kids' science questions", which we vowed to study to keep acquiring new tips!
—Trevor Corson
Image: WIRED magazine, "5 Levels" video series, "Computer Scientist Explains Machine Learning in 5 Levels of Difficulty"