How to improve our scientific communication skill in Agriculture research?

Scientific communication skills include reading, writing and oral presentation. For students studying agricultural science, scientific communication skills always play an important role because agriculture is a science and technical subject; where we have to write reports, thesis and to give presentation in scientific level. 

Therefore, I am discussing here how can we improve each of the communication skills for agricultural science. 

A. Reading skill

When we write thesis, research reports and research proposal, we have to find scientific papers and read it. What is the current trend is, find random paper and 'copy and paste' the lines or phrases where it match to your writing. But it is wrong, we have to find the research papers first and then there are few tips to do better reading

1. Skimming 

We have many more papers to read therefore, we can not always manage to read whole papers at all time. Therefore, we should be able to skim. Skimming include reading abstract, result, discussion and conclusion. It will give us main idea of the paper. So, we would be able to find the right paper in short time.

2. Choosing papers 

Furthermore, when we choosing papers we always have to find original research papers because it is more authentic, reliable and plausible. Research papers are peer reviewed, so the information presented on research papers are considered as proven information. However, the review paper does not mentioned about the result, discussion and methodology of the presented result. Therefore, we could not justify the information presented in review paper if we want to put into our writing. In another hand, we have to give credit to original scientist who found the result, so, original research papers are more authentic to give credit. So, we have to prioritise finding original research papers than review papers.

B. Writing

Writing is an important component in scientific academic writing. In writing section, we have to justify our results based on the previous results and work done. So, putting information in writing session is more critical and equally important. We can follow following tips while writing the main body of our research papers, thesis, research reports and/or research proposal

1. Be original

We always have to be original while writing. Our writing style should be very original and the justification should reflects your idea and thoughts. While writing, we have to always write in very simple words and sentences, because our audience may not understand our language. So always think about the larger audience and write with simple words and sentences, don't be complex. In introduction/background section, we have to reflect our own idea of why we doing this research/projects. We should avoid putting many references and giving reference from book if possible. 

Never 'copy and paste' from the original papers, always paraphrase the sentence and use it when appropriate. You can only 'copy and paste' if you have to use any specific phrases or sentences with the specific sign i.e. "....." for instance "sun always rise from east", like this. 

2. Do not write too much

We should be more concise and specific in scientific writing. There could be higher chance for drifting away from main idea/content; we should not drift away from the main content. Adding too much information than actually necessary can drift you away from the main content and make it more confusing, so you always have to be cautious for providing  right volume of information. 

3. Always use proven methods to justify your work in methodology section

We have to give reference to the proven methods presented in the published papers. We can not always develop own methods to do our research, or even if we going to develop new methods we have to scientifically justify how we have developed method and then have to prove it. Then, it will be another separate paper which will called methodology paper if you developing a new method. We usually, always follow the already proven methods, therefore, we have to give reference to the original methods. We always have to justify your work using already proven methods. 

C. Presentation skill

Students in the scientific and technical studies have to give many oral presentations. For oral presentation, at first we have to be more confident while presenting. We should present confidently with good eye contact. But before presentation we have to be careful making our presentation slides which is more crucial. In scientific powerpoint slides, we always have to use simple and easy way of making it such as

-using plain and white powerpoint background

-using black lettres than colourful test. Colorful text may not be visible from from distance such as from back bench 

-Always caring about colour contrast

-Using very simple sentences: our audience may not always understand our scientific language as we may have different level of audience. Therefore, we always have to target all audience and write in simple words and sentence

-use more graphs and pictures to illustrate your work

-Do not use much words: do not make your presentation too wordy

-Use pointer to show the information