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Good research explained badly still fails to land. Treat this playbook more like a working reference than a rigid guideline. You will have to pull the right pieces that you need before your specific talk, poster session, interview, or grant pitch.

The more deeply you understand something, the harder it becomes to remember what it's like not to understand it.

There is a term for it - curse of knowledge.

It's why experts default to chronological explanations ("first we did X, then Y, then Z"), over-qualify every claim, and forget to explain the one term that unlocks everything else.

A quick self-diagnostic — see if you recognize yourself in these:

• The Time Traveler — you narrate the research in the order you did it, not the order the audience needs to hear it.
• The Encyclopedia — you build ten minutes of background before revealing why any of it matters.
• The Jargon Fortress — you use field-specific terms without noticing they're field-specific. 🙂
• The Hedge Maze — every sentence has three caveats, so the main point never lands clearly.

Most of this playbook is about undoing one of these four habits. Let’s roll.

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Part 1 - Before You Write a Word

1. Know your audience, specifically

"General audience" isn't specific enough to write for. Before you draft anything, answer: What do they already know? What do they care about? Why are they in the room (curiosity, funding decision, personal stake, obligation)?

A talk for donors, a talk for policymakers, and a talk for undergrads share a topic but should barely share a script.

2. Choose the core feeling you're going for

Separately from the content, decide the emotional register: wonder, urgency, hope, curiosity, trust. Then do a pass over your outline and ask of each section - does this build the feeling, or dilute it?