Conducting high-quality research is only the first step for any academic who wishes to advance knowledge and make an impact in his or her field.
The ability to effectively communicate your research findings is a critical skill. It can mean the difference between producing research that just sits on a shelf and research that drives real-world change.
On May 22, CARISCA hosted a virtual training session titled From Research to Impact: The Art of Academic Storytelling, led by Dominic Essuman, a lecturer in sustainable management at the University of Sheffield. The training focused on equipping participants with strategies for transforming complex academic work into compelling stories.
The event was part of the CARISCA Training Series, which aims to boost the research capacity of KNUST and other African scholars.
The training covered three primary topics:
- Developing a compelling research storyline
- Telling your research story with clarity and confidence
- Reflecting on and learning from presentation experiences
Communicating through Story
Dr. Essuman emphasized that storytelling “allows a greater level of flexibility in terms of how you start your story or how you want to package your message.” While academia typically values precision and detail, he argued, effective storytelling depends on clarity and connection.
Participants learned how to shift from rigid, jargon-heavy presentations to narratives that are “simple, clear, understandable, and memorable.”
“Generally, no matter how complex your research is, you can still go for a simpler way of telling it,” Dr. Essuman said. He explained that while academic language “tends to be very technical,” storytelling should be “easy to tell” and accessible to non-specialist audiences.
A strong academic story starts with a compelling trigger: an event, paradox, or gap that sparked the research. As Dr. Essuman explained, “Stories have characters… Beyond the researcher, they may include people, organizations, supply chains, relationships, or communities.”
He reminded participants that good storytelling requires coherence: “If people cannot see the clear connections between where you are starting the story from and where you are ending, it’s not a good story.”
Dr. Essuman encouraged participants to avoid academic jargon when explaining their methods or findings:
“If you use a survey, you don’t have to say ‘we used a positivist paradigm.’ It’s not important there… Keep things simple.”
He advised them to focus only on findings that relate to their core research questions: “Just state findings that are related to your research question… Any other details can appear in an appendix.”
He also stressed the power of visuals: “One image can say a lot… Make sure you incorporate visuals or graphic information appropriately.”
Key Questions to Guide Your Story
Dr. Essuman shared a five-part framework:
- What triggered your study?
- What did you study?
- How did you study it?
- What did you find?
- Why does it matter?
“As part of telling your story, you should begin by telling the audience in plain language what triggered your study,” he explained.
“With this simple framework, you should be able to tell any academic story… even in 30 seconds,” he added.
Top 10 Key Takeaways
- Present your research in a storytelling form, not just as data.
- Use plain and simple language when communicating academic research.
- Be concise yet comprehensive in your academic storytelling.
- Don’t be confident without competence.
- Practice as often as you can.
- Avoid overloading slides with text.
- Don’t read directly from slides. Focus on telling the story.
- Tailor your presentation to the target listener or consumer of your findings.
- Prepare thoroughly. Don’t assume the audience understands.
- A clear story paired with practice delivers the message effectively.