Reading, Writing, and Presenting Research – Lecture 6

Four core “F-factors” every piece of scientific communication should satisfy
- Foundation
- Think like a scientist → connect to prior empirical work & theory
- Formulate a clear central research question / thesis before anything else
- Fidelity
- Uphold research ethics, methodological rigour, and transparency
- Be clear, honest, direct; avoid misleading language or visuals
- Framing
- Build a strong argument & compelling narrative
- Organize ideas to maximize audience impact
- Format
- Match content to context (journal article, talk, poster, press release, etc.)
- Adopt appropriate scientific style & tone; respect discipline-specific conventions
Competencies effective communicators need
- Academic writing (journal articles, theses, grant proposals)
- Talks & posters for conferences
- Collaborating with peers/colleagues (memos, preregistrations, OSF pages)
- Explaining work to non-scientists, journalists, policy makers
Example of communication failure → misleading COVID-19 cumulative testing bar chart
- Bars showed ever-increasing total tests; visually implied improving capacity
- Linearly rising cumulative series actually reflects no improvement in daily testing rate
- Lesson: design choices can distort interpretation (graphical integrity)

Abstract – miniature version of the entire paper (objectives, methods, key results, conclusions)
Introduction – funnel from broad topic to specific gap; ends with purpose / hypotheses
Methods – enough detail to replicate (participants, design, materials, procedure, analyses)
Results – objective statistical outcomes without interpretation (tables & figures here)
Discussion – interpret results, situate in literature, note limitations, future directions, broad implications
Extra front/back matter: title, authors/affiliations, COI & funding statements, data‐availability, reference list
Confirmatory vs. Exploratory designs
- Confirmatory: pre-specified, theory-driven hypotheses, fixed analyses (↑ replicability, ↓ researcher degrees-of-freedom)
- Exploratory: flexible, pattern-searching, theory-generating but ↑ bias risk

Two complementary facets
- Technical mechanics (APA 7)
- Headings hierarchy, line spacing, page numbering, font (e.g., 12-pt TNR), indentation
- Rules for abbreviations, numerals vs. words, punctuation, statistical reporting, citations
- General scholarly writing skills
- Continuity & flow, word choice, concision, tone, logical organization
APA ≠ only style; e.g., Vancouver style (numeric in-text, biomedical journals)
Why learn APA?
- Required for current assignments, later coursework, theses, manuscripts
- Emphasises clarity over technical trivia—communication > pedantry

Continuity = logical consistency across text; Flow = smooth cadence of sentences
Use transitions: time ("after"), cause-effect ("therefore"), addition ("moreover"), contrast ("however")

Remove “weasel” words (really, actually), redundant pairs (hope and trust), obvious fillers (end result), verbose negatives ("not many" → "few")
Vary sentence & paragraph length; avoid both run-ons and telegraph style

Direct, professional, engaging
Prefer precise verbs (demonstrates vs. suggests vs. implicates)
Limit jargon unless essential; translate “therapeutic intervention provider” → “therapist”

Active clearer and shorter but passive acceptable when actor unimportant or known, or for stylistic variation
Beware using passive merely to hide responsibility

Proper APA sentence: “There was a statistically significant negative correlation between anxiety symptoms and wellbeing, r = -.53,\; p < .01.”
- Includes test statistic (r), effect size, p-value, and sign/direction

No running head; add course name, instructor, due date under title
Otherwise keep double spacing, 1-inch margins, page numbers, left-aligned first-line indents

Not all visuals are helpful; cluttered “brain infographic” undermines comprehension
Figures assist readers when they:
- Highlight direct comparisons (e.g., Bushman & Gibson 2011 bar plot of experimental conditions)
- Combine stimuli depiction + results (Taylor et al. 2015) to link task and outcome
- Clarify complex multi-task methods (Jeon et al. 2012 visual battery)

Graphical integrity: Represent data honestly (avoid truncated axes, disproportionate shapes)
Match graph type to data & message (see “Which graph should I use?” cheatsheet)
Design for accessibility (color-blind-safe palettes, double encoding by shape & color)
Encourage correct cognitive takeaway; minimize extraneous ink

Anscombe’s quartet: datasets with identical $\bar x,\; \bar y,\; s<em>x,\; s</em>y,\; r$ but radically different scatter patterns → visualize the data!
Climate y-axis stretch example: small change magnified to communicate urgency correctly when scale is contextually justified; conversely dishonest when used to exaggerate Obamacare enrollment growth.
Scale distortion pitfalls shown with IQ, depression scores, body temperature graphs (truncated axes change perceived differences)
Assumed linearity example: plotting pre/post treatment without revealing curvilinear trend misleads

Scatterplot encoded by both shape & hue; Photoshop simulation of protanopia demonstrates importance of redundant coding

Forgetting-rate illustration
- Raw difference: both groups forgot $30$ percentage points
- Proportional loss: High learners lost $\frac{30}{80}=0.375$ vs. Low learners $\frac{30}{70}=0.429$
- Endpoint comparison: High learners still remember more (50 % vs 40 %)
- Moral: choose metric that aligns with your research question and explain it explicitly

Use same F-factor principles
Posters: rely heavily on visuals → keep text minimal, narrative flows left-to-right/top-to-bottom
Talks: slide deck should guide, not repeat, spoken narrative; design graphics for viewing distance

Transparency = moral obligation (show methods, data, analysis decisions)
Misleading visuals or opaque prose violate scientific integrity, hinder reproducibility, misinform public

University of Toronto Writing Centre, OWL Purdue, UTSC TWC handouts (punctuation, active/passive, transitions)
Twitter threads (e.g., @callin_bull, @philipcball) illustrate real-world critique of poor visual communication
Writing comics (Tom Gauld) remind us that impenetrable language defeats purpose