Explaining complex concepts or theories to a general audience can be tricky. It's a problem many experts face when trying to describe their work. How do you explain it in a way that makes it understandable, without dumbing it down?
Longtime Lake Effect contributor Jean Creighton is pretty good at doing that when it comes to astronomy. Not only does she help visitors at the Manfred Olson Planetarium, she's also been helping the Lake Effect team understand how the universe works for almost a decade and.
Creighton shares some helpful tips for any expert who has to explain a complex subject.
1. Know your audience.
"You could be talking to quote, non-experts, but that can still be a very large range of people. You must try and target your response to where they're at," says Creighton. "I think the first thing is to find where are these other people, what do they know about this, what do they think? What terms might they be familiar with? You don't want to talk down to people, but on the other hand you need to make sure that we're all kind of using similar terms that we understand."
2. Use metaphors and imagery.
While Creighton admits that it can be hard to find metaphors that fit every situation, they can be helpful even when they're not perfect. Using metaphors and imagery can help people better understand the material. "Anything that connects it to people's experience helps," she says.
3. Explain why this information is important.
"People will put up with not understanding everything if they see how this is important, or why people study this," says Creighton. Take something like particle physics, which can be tough to talk about without using complex equations: "When you talk about very abstract things, you want to explain why this is exciting, why this is interesting, and then give them a glimpse of what it involves."
4. Use the questions people ask as an opportunity to think creatively and critically.
The group that you're speaking to will always come to the table with different experiences and ideas about your topic, which can lead to some interesting questions. It's an opportunity to look at your topic through a different lens. "It's like showing you a different picture. Like, this is what I see and what they see is quite different from what I see. And it's useful to have that other point of view," says Creighton.
5. Leave them wanting more.
Everyone comes to the table with a different set of tools to work with, and Creighton says while it's important that you don't overwhelm your audience with too much new information. "You don't want to give them everything because then you've basically floored them; you've overwhelmed them," she says "You can't hit everybody with 100%, the best. You will give something to everybody, that's what I hope to do."
6. Practice, practice, practice.
"You try different things and various things happen," says Creighton. "There's always a question that somebody will ask you... And you realize you don't have... the entire answer in your head. You don't actually remember or know exactly how this works. So you kind of have to figure it out on the spot." While practice may not make you perfect, it teaches you how to approach your topic in different ways for different groups.
