As part of our workshop on “Can outreach make you a better scientist?” at the ESOF 2012 conference in Dublin today, we are running a competition to find the best example of scientific jargon masquerading as plain English. As a prize, SciConnect is offering the winner the choice of a free one-hour coaching session or a 10% discount on a training course for their organisation.
When communicating with non-specialists, scientists are usually aware of the need to avoid jargon in the form of specialist, scientific words. But although most jargon words are easy to spot, some can creep up on you unawares because they are everyday words that also happen to have a scientific meaning. We call these words “false friends”, because you use them thinking that everyone knows what you mean. Result? Confusion and misunderstanding. A classic example is “model”:
A model, to a biomedical scientist, could be an animal model used to study disease…
On the other hand, to a geophysicist, it could mean a computer model of a geological phenomenon…
While to the man or woman on the street, THIS is a model…
Imagine the confusion you could cause if you gave a public lecture on using models in cancer research or climate science! So what “false friend” words have you come across in your field of research, or in your dealings with other scientists?
To take part in our competition, tweet your “false friend” jargon word, together with all its potentially confusing definitions before 18:00 BST on Friday 13th July. You must add the #sciconnect hashtag to your tweet so that we can find it. For example, if you were submitting “model” as an entry, you could tweet: “Model”: animal disease model (to me, a biologist), computer model (geologist), supermodel (my Mum) #sciconnect
Our judges (Claire Ainsworth, Jon Copley and Helen Goulding, all speakers in today’s workshop) will pick a winning entry, which, in their opinion, is the most original, surprising or amusing example of an everyday word that has a potentially confusing scientific meaning. We will announce the winner on Twitter (follow @SciConnect to see it) and on our blog on Sunday 15th July. By entering the competition, you agree to the competition rules detailed below. Good luck!
Competition rules
1. The competition is free to enter.
2. You must have a genuine personal or institutional Twitter account to enter.
3. The competition opens at 16:00 on Thursday 12 July and closes at 18:00 on Friday 13 July.
4. You may submit as many unique entries as you wish.
5. The judges (Dr Claire Ainsworth of SciConnect Ltd, Dr Jon Copley of The University of Southampton and Dr Helen Goulding of Quercus Training) will select the entry that they feel is the most original, surprising or amusing example of a scientific word with an everyday meaning that has the potential to confuse different audiences.
6. The winner will be announced on Sunday 15th July via the SciConnect blog and Twitter. We (SciConnect) may reproduce any of the tweets entered into the competition on our blog or social media accounts.
7. No cash prize will be substituted and the Judges’ decision is final.
The Prize
The prize will be awarded to one entrant only. The winner may choose between:
A free one-hour coaching session via Skype (Claire Ainsworth on science communication or Helen Goulding on careers and skills) OR a 10% discount on a SciConnect training course for their organisation.
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