How to communicate research-in-progress (even when you feel it's still too early)
- Hannah Booth
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Anyone who's ever been anywhere near academic research knows that the timescales involved can be pretty long, with progress unfolding over several years. At the end of the day, thorough, robust research cannot be rushed (no matter what the AI companies try to tell us). And so when it comes to communicating the work, we're often tempted to put things on hold — to wait until the full findings are in and ready to be neatly packaged for whichever channel or platform is currently in favour.
But you don't necessarily need to wait that long to share your research and already make an impact. In fact, with online visibility ever more important for career success, and growing pressures to disseminate public-funded research, there are many reasons why regularly communicating your work throughout a project's full lifecycle is a sensible idea. Besides, a piece of research is never truly finished — there's always more that can be done — so the perfect moment you have in mind to start sharing will likely never arrive. So why not start right now?
The good news is that there are lots of ways to turn work-in-progress into a compelling and interesting research story. Below are a few ideas for how you can communicate your work at every stage, and long before the final results are in.
1 | The origin story
What motivated you to work on this research in the first place? The personal or intellectual backstory behind a research project is available from day one, and can often capture the imagination just as much as the eventual research insights themselves. A good way to introduce a new project at an early stage.
2 | A glimpse behind the scenes
What does doing your research actually look like up-close? The fieldwork, the archive, the lab, the interview — they may be your bread and butter, but most of these settings are beyond the experience of non-specialists, and almost always more interesting to readers than academics expect.
3 | Why it's worth doing this now
What has changed — in the field, in terms of methods or technology, or out in the real world — that makes it the right moment to carry out this research at this particular moment? Articulating this helps position your project as something timely, exciting and worth paying attention to.
4 | An unexpected turn
A chance finding, an unexpected result, a surprising new avenue to pursue — all can make for a genuinely interesting narrative, and offer the public a glimpse of the creativity and adaptability that goes into conducting serious research. Make the most of the inevitable curveballs that will come your way (as they always do).
5 | The assumptions you're questioning
Most likely your research involves challenging some prior assumptions somewhere along the way. Highlighting the new perspective you'll be bringing to the field, and ultimately to the world, can help make a clear case for the research from the outset. A way to contextualise your work against what has come before, and to showcase it's value.
6 | What's at stake
Why does this research matter in the grand scheme of things? Who or what will benefit from what you plan to find out? Even if your work is theoretical rather than applied, there's always a reason why it matters. Try to think about where things will head if your research is not done, to get a real sense of what's at stake. Giving people a clear reason to care about your work in the future is a very compelling way to get people on board for the ride.
I hope you found this post useful!
I'm Hannah, a former academic in linguistics, and in my work at Smart Phrasing I help researchers communicate their work with confidence, clarity and impact, so their ideas and discoveries reach the people who most need to hear them.
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