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Research Impact Series Pitching and writing for The Conversation @UWAresearch research.uwa.edu.au/events
Research Impact Series
Pitching and writing for The Conversation @UWAresearch research.uwa.edu.au/events
Pitching & writing for The Conversation Michael Hopkin, Science + Technology Editor University of Western Australia, 25 July 2019
I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners and ongoing custodians of the land we’re meeting on today, whose sovereignty was never ceded. I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
The Conversation also acknowledges the expertise of Indigenous researchers who’ve written for us.
Sharing that expertise can have real world impact – eg. after CSU’s Associate Professor Dominic O’Sullivan wrote about state removal of Indigenous children (above), he was invited to be an expert witness in legal proceedings before New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal, in a case he had written about in his article.
The Conversation is a not-for-profit online publisher, sharing evidence-based expertise with a broad, global audience. Launched in 2011, our Australian/NZ edition currently reaches a monthly audience of
5.4 million users on site &
14.8 million article views through republication We now have separate editions of The Conversation – in multiple languages – in sub-Saharan Africa, Canada, France, Indonesia, Spain, the UK and the US. Together, all Conversation editions reach a total monthly audience of
14 million users on site, and
42 million article views through republication
4.15 million
reads* in the past year
370 authors to date
(July 2019)
Where in the world UWA’s stories are read
* Reads refers to the number of unique page views through republication. Let me know if key people need to access to your institutional metrics or the monthly audience report.
22.8 million
reads* to date
Global republication of your work
More than 20,000 sites around the world republish our content for free – from niche industry outlets through to the world’s biggest media outlets.
Your top republishers inc: ● IFLScience ● ABC News ● Sydney Morning Herald ● Scroll.In (India) ● Lifehacker ● Phys.org ● Stuff (NZ)
March 2011 – June 2019 Your top 10 best read Conversation articles
Post-publication impacts
New research funding, a book deal & ‘unprecedented’ opportunities
“I have industry leaders wanting to work with me who found me through The Conversation. I have got grant funding as a result of writing for The Conversation, including now working with the Association of Australasian Acoustical Consultants on a major research project with significant grant funding. I have a book contract with Routledge in the UK for a sole-authored book in my research area. “Based on an article I wrote for The Conversation, the Harvard Business Review’s executive editor asked me to write for them about my research, which is incredible. I feel like I’m on the ABC every second day; just last week I did an article that led to three radio interviews and an online story for Channel 10. “The impact and engagement that The Conversation facilitates for my research is unprecedented. I can't imagine how this could be achieved any other way.”
– Dr Libby Sander, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Bond University
What to know before you pitch
Our audience: broad, global and mostly not academics
Our editors help academics translate complex work into clear, conversational, jargon-free English. That helps us and you reach far more people – including government and policy leaders, business people, teachers, students and more – not just your peers.
3 key types of stories we publish
Timely: New research, often tied to a journal article
3 key types of stories we publish
Timely: Rapid analysis of issues in the news
How fast can we publish? We published two articles within hours of the Christchurch terrorist attacks, while Dr Chelsea Bond published her response to Bill Leak’s cartoon within one day. If it’s in the news, we need to move fast.
3 key types of stories we publish
Timeless: Ongoing or one-off series & collaborations
How fast can we publish? If it’s part of a series, or tied to a journal article, it can be weeks or even months between the first pitch and publication.
More than words
Multimedia: videos, podcasts, books, comics, interactives...
Key points of difference
Collaborative editing & shared final approval
Key points of difference
Full disclosure: please mention any potential conflicts from the start
How do we find authors?
We chase our own ideas via a weekday expert callout to media teams
Does your media team know your work? And
do they have your mobile?
How do we find authors?
Pitch us your idea: theconversation.com/au/pitches
Pitching tips
Be ready to answer questions such as: ● What's your story in one sentence?
● Why is this interesting or significant for non-
academic readers?
● Do you have photos, video, audio, graphs or other material to illustrate your story?
● Is this issue particularly relevant now, or looking ahead? Or are you suggesting this as a timeless 'explainer'?
● Do you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander? (And why we now ask…)
Pitching tips
We can only publish a fraction of pitches The Conversation Australia has 18 commissioning editors (when fully staffed), receiving hundreds of pitches daily. Each section averages just 1-2 editors. Today, even long-time authors can get pitches knocked back, as our staffing has stayed the same while interest in writing for us has exploded… Unfortunately we can only accept a small minority of the pitches we receive.
DO: Use The Conversation’s standard pitch process (rather than emailing editors)
DO: Pitch as soon as possible. If it’s tied to a journal article, let
us know a rough publication date (if you know it).
DON’T: Draft entire articles before pitching.
DON’T: Give up if you get a no on your first go.
Pitching tips
Which pitch would you choose?
“I plan to write an article that ultimately questions the concept of socialism as a historical ideology, its buzz-word-status in the 21st Century and the new emerging values, built on pragmatic social-democracy that have possibly overtaken Socialism. I will then explain my conclusion as to why Socialism is well and truly out of context in modern Australian politics and my proposition of a ‘new way forward’, which calls for the reasonable regulation of capitalism, champions the right to cultural, racial and religious freedom and calls for a modernisation of democratic politics, which combines the engagement of industrial relations, paired with ethical business leadership in economic and social reform.”
VS.
“April 30 marks the end of WA’s controversial baited drumline program for mitigating shark hazard. “We have undertaken a survey of over 550 ocean-users and find that ocean-users encounter sharks regularly, and oppose mitigation strategies that involve killing. “On April 30 our short paper detailing results will be published online in the journal ‘Australian Geographer’. As such, a piece for The Conversation published on April 30 or May 1 would be very timely.”
Writing tips
Tips for The Conversation (and other news media) ● Start with what’s new, relevant, or surprising – the opposite structure of a traditional
academic paper.
● Avoid acronyms. Unfamiliar acronyms or jargon shut out non-experts.
● Be short, sharp, clear and conversational. Why ‘disembark from a vehicle’ when you could ‘step out of a car’?
● Readers want to know five Ws: who, what, where, when, why (+ sometimes how).
● Contentious statements and key claims must be backed up with evidence. We reference with online links, preferably to full research papers, but to abstracts or summaries if a full paper isn’t available. This also drives higher citations and improved Altmetrics. If using oral evidence, we can embed audio files into stories.
● Most Conversation articles are only 600-800 words. But we do also publish shorter articles (eg Curious Kids), some long essays & in multimedia formats.
Post-article impact
52% print media
27% TV
83% radio
36% online media SOURCE: ANNUAL READER SURVEY, 2017
“Getting published by The Conversation is useful to my career.”
100% of academic survey respondents agreed:
66% 11% contacted for business consultation
13% invited to speak at conferences of authors report being contacted by other media
16% contacted for research collaboration
Post-publication impact for all Conversation authors
Post-publication impacts
Attracting interest from policymakers & international educators
“I published my second Conversation article in June 2019. It generated an extraordinary amount of national media coverage (6 live interviews that were syndicated 350+ times around Australia in radio or print form – we stopped counting). I was also invited to do an interview on an education podcast. And it was republished by an international study website. “Perhaps most significantly, I had five separate contacts from government education departments wanting to see my research. This was a highly successful way to share Bond research!”
– Dr Peta Stapleton,
Associate Professor in Psychology, Bond University
“The Altmetric score of the main manuscript underlying this article was ranked 54 before The Conversation article was published. “Now the Altmetric score is 153, which means the article is in the 98th percentile (ranked 4,090th) of the 253,620 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals. And it’s now in the 97th percentile (ranked 1st) of the 43 tracked articles of a similar age in the International Journal of Obesity.”
– Dr Gina Cleo, Senior Postdoctoral
Research Fellow, Bond University
Post-publication impacts
Global reach & higher Altmetrics scores for journal articles
Dr Gina Cleo was one of several Bond authors who wrote for The Conversation for the first time in the past year. Her summary of a new International Journal of Obesity journal article was republished by 30 media outlets, including ABC News, news.com.au and The Daily Mail. It generated national radio & TV interviews, as well as news coverage for Bond in NZ & the UK.
A senior CSIRO scientist’s experience
34 articles, 720,379 readers
“I’ve found it most rewarding to work with exceptionally talented editors from The Conversation to produce great articles, which have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
“The effort in producing these articles is relatively small, the editors are very engaged and speedy, and it has been a great experience for myself on how to communicate to broad audiences.
“It is hard to beat the impact of The Conversation articles.”
A PhD candidate’s experience
“Writing for the Conversation has been great. Exposure to the editing process and platform has been a stand out, including getting an opportunity to write something that is serious but short. It’s helped a lot with my own work and getting my ideas out there. “The other thing is getting other opportunities. Since first publishing early last year, I’ve appeared on ABC TV’s The Drum twice and received other invitations to speak and engage on research.”
6 articles, 42,424 readers
Post-publication impacts
Injecting real expertise into the news
“I am about to do media interview #52 (Deutsche Welle) and all but 6-7 have been with overseas media. 8 with the BBC, 4 with CNN etc. And nearly all have referenced The Conversation piece.”
– Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, March 21 (six days after the Christchurch attacks)
Massey University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Paul Spoonley’s article drew on decades of research on extremism. It was translated into Indonesian, Spanish and French, and reached 130,000+ readers.
Post-publication impact
What happened after this author’s first two Conversation articles?
After her first article (July 2016) ● Appointed to the Board of Directors of the Australian
Privacy Foundation ● Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department invitation
to consult on ‘A shared vision: better information sharing to fight crime in 2030’ at the Garran Strategy Series in Canberra (August 2016)
After her second article (October 2016) ● Appointed Co-chair of the Surveillance Committee of the
Australian Privacy Foundation ● Amnesty International invitation to speak at special
screening of Citizenfour documentary on Snowden disclosures, surveillance, transparency and privacy
● ABC Radio National Future Tense program on ‘issues of digital insecurity’ (November 2016)
“As an early career researcher, this public exposure has been
invaluable in getting my name and research out nationally and
internationally.” – Dr Monique Mann, QUT
Post-publication impacts
Timeless stories often reach the biggest audiences of all
Post-publication impacts
Many stories reach smaller audiences – but they count just as much
“I was amazed by the response to my article on PNG’s worsening drought, including seeing it republished within days by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. I really appreciated how you helped craft it into a good piece that’s been read by policy practitioners around the world, including in the US, PNG, UK and beyond.” – Dr Mike Bourke, ANU
A final tip: read before you pitch or write!
Reading our site & the morning newsletter are the fastest ways to see what we do – and don’t –
publish
On social media? Follow us @ConversationEDU
