Researchers often struggle to explain their work outside their immediate professional circles — not just to friends and family, but even to clinicians or scientists from other fields. Whether writing personal statements, presenting posters, or engaging in casual conversations, they must balance accuracy and rigor with clarity or risk losing their audience. The difficulty isn’t a lack of knowledge: researchers are deeply familiar with their material. Rather, it comes down to deciding how much to say, how much detail to provide and how to articulate the message beyond the comfort zone of the peer-reviewed paper.
One effective method to help navigate this challenge is the ABT (And, But, Therefore) Framework, developed by Randy Olson, PhD and the ABT Institute. The idea is simple: anything we want to say can be shaped into a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. To mark the transitions between these parts, words of agreement (and) help set the stage, words of contradiction (but) introduce tension, and words of consequence (therefore) bring the story to a close. This structure will feel similar to books, movies, podcasts and commercials that stay with us: first, context is established; then, a problem arises; and ultimately, the situation is resolved. For a more in-depth look at the power of this tool and how to use it for science communication, watch Randy and his team in two recent online workshops hosted by the Center for Health & Science Communication at Becker Library in partnership with Jay Piccirillo, MD, FACS, the TL1 Program and the R25 Program.
- Training Today’s Health Care Professionals for Communication with the new ABT (And, But, Therefore) Narrative Framework
- Applying the ABT Narrative Framework to NIH Proposal Writing
While the ABT Framework is helpful for preparing lectures and grant proposals, it is particularly well-suited for poster presentations and other brief interactions, and it allows the same underlying message to be shaped differently depending on the context and the audience.
For example, a professor giving a quick overview of their lab to prospective graduate students might say, “We investigate type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that affects about one in 200 individuals and causes the immune system to attack the body’s own insulin-producing cells. However, there’s still no cure for this condition, so we work to find better ways to treat it using a combination of basic research, clinical trials and data analysis.” The same researcher, closing a presentation at a fundraising event, might instead say, “Our core challenge is to stop type 1 diabetes, and today I’ve shown you that the immunotherapies we’re developing hold real promise. But unless we translate these findings into treatments for patients, that promise may never be realized — therefore, your support can make a real difference for people living with the disease.”
Interested in learning more? The Center for Health & Science Communication offers customized workshops, including a practical introduction to the ABT Framework, to help you distill your message to the essentials and deliver it effectively in various scenarios.