We write our scientific papers incorrectly and give talks often poorly. Scientific papers should be written in the journalistic style of the inverted pyramid with the most important information given first and finer but overall less important details following from this. The lead (first sentence) is the only thing that we can guarantee a reader to actually absorb. Hence, this should have the most important information. This is a natural way that humans intake information. Journalists figured this out centuries ago, and it is time that scientists caught up. Additionally, a good scientific talk is a campfire story with the visual aid serving as the campfire. A good talk forms a relationship between the audience and the speaker in the same way telling stories around a campfire builds human group cohesion. These new tenets of scientific communication can then also take the regular ways in which chemists communicate with one another and make them more accessible to non-chemists and even non-scientists. This presentation serves as a general overview for the book <i>Professional Science Communication</i> (RSC, 2019) written by the presenter.

Chemists should write like journalists and speak like cavemen

2019 Spring National Meeting

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