Storytelling for Researchers
All stories start with a question; “what if…?”.
In research, we ask “what if…?” too, but we call this question a hypothesis, and seek to answer it with experiments and studies. Despite this likeness between research and stories, many of us struggle to communicate our work effectively and engagingly. Well, what if researchers became better storytellers?
In this three-part training series, I will give you the tools you need to tell creative and compelling stories about your work to make you more memorable, understandable and engaging, increasing the overall impact of your work.
We’ll cover how to structure like a storyteller, how to create compelling worlds and characters (even in a literature review!), and how to use language succinctly and engagingly to make your message pitch-perfect for any future audience.
These foundational skills can be tailored to your specific needs, for example:
Writing papers
Writing PhD theses
Giving presentations
Writing grant or fellowship proposals
Public engagement
Interacting with the media
There’s no prior experience of creative writing or presenting required – this training is for everyone from folks who detest writing and want to inject some fun into the day-job, to regular writers and presenters looking to step up their game to the next level.
It can be delivered in-person or online, and can be tailored to a full-day, half-day, or a 60-90 minute ‘best of’ lecture.
Click the button for more information, or get in touch to bring storytelling to your researchers.
Previous Clients
Testimonials (academic)
Anna’s storytelling workshop really was a game changer for me in how I approached writing, not just for work but also in other aspects of my day to day life. The sessions have really helped me to not only feel more confident in starting, but also in actually enjoying the entire process. They were extremely engaging and I always left the sessions feeling inspired to tackle my next writing challenge head on. I can’t recommend Anna’s storytelling training enough and even since finishing the sessions I have maintained, and continue to develop, my appreciation for a good story. If the thought of writing is something you find daunting and intimidating, this is the place to start. You won’t regret it!
- Schan Dissanayake-Perera, First Year PhD Student, Imperial College London
Anna was a joy to work with. She was happy to adapt the training to the organisations needs, and delivered on this perfectly. The training was really engaging, thought provoking and fun! I would definitely recommend working with Anna and taking her storytelling training.
- Dr Elizabeth Mills, SMMR-Net Network and Development Officer
This workshop fantastic, very interactive and well facilitated by Anna, who guided us in a very compelling and well structured way into the art of storytelling. Her knowledge of story arcs and other elements coupled with her ability to relate these to scientific writing was exceptional, and I came away armed with several tactics for improving my own presentation and writing structure and style. Very highly recommend she comes back again.
- Participant from the University of Warwick
This was a really practical, extremely useful session which took us step-by-step through creating stories about our work. The practical method used by Anna was extremely useful. This was something that worked straightaway and which was built up during the session. It resulted in a practical outcome on the day, but can also be easily transposed to future presentations, both in public engagement/communication of our research as well as generally within research presentations and teaching.
- Participant from the University of Warwick
I utterly enjoyed Anna’s course; it was inspirational and very uplifting. I am hoping to put my new skills to good use tomorrow when I present about the lab at a kick off meeting.
- Dr Stefanie Broszeit, Marine Ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Testimonials (industry)
It was a no-brainer to suggest Anna’s storytelling training when we started planning a team away day, having done it a couple years ago. It was just fab! Anna’s ability to grasp what we do as a policy research organisation and make the session useful to our team was really appreciated. Concepts were presented in an easily digestible way and Anna’s charisma and fun examples really helped engage the whole team. It’s been great to see the team already start putting storytelling techniques into practice. Highly recommended!
- Dr Marie-Laure Hicks, Senior Analyst, Science and Emerging Technology, RAND Europe
Anna’s recent webinar at our laboratory was one of the best - and best-attended - we’ve ever hosted. She shared so many practical ideas about science storytelling in the course of an hour long talk and sparked a great discussion with our researchers during the Q&A session following her presentation. As a scientist herself, she speaks the language of science and connects with researchers, but also is able to speak credibly to the importance of personal storytelling. She has an easy manner and a curious and engaging personality that allows her to draw an audience in. In effect, she taught our staff storytelling techniques and demonstrated them at the same time!
- Paul Runci, Senior Communications Advisor, U.S.A.
The course was informative, insightful and great fun, with Anna bringing a wealth of real-world experience in scientific storytelling. During the course, the team learnt lots of great storytelling techniques to help communicate the science we do more effectively. Whether that be using narrative arcs, creating worlds or using graphs to tell a story. We all came away with lots of inspiration and have already been putting the techniques we learnt in to practice when communicating. Who knew that the same storytelling techniques used in my favourite book could be so applicable to communicating skin science research!
- Dr Eleanor Bradley, Science Credentialing Manager, No7 Beauty Company
My team truly engaged in the course, coming away with new ideas about how the theories behind storytelling could help us communicate engineering, research and innovation policy. We all left the training excited to use what we had learned in our own projects. Anna’s session with the team was insightful, full of practical tools for our work, and most of all extremely fun.
- Dr Helen Ewles, Head of Research & Innovation Policy at the Royal Academy of Engineering
Anna’s Creative Science Storytelling course was absolutely superb and extremely enjoyable. Her material was well researched, insightful and reflective. The course was shaped fantastically, mirroring her teaching on stories, but also flexible in its format. Between our wider team, we experienced the course as 3 separate sessions and as a full day and both worked well. Anna’s delivery is spot on. She is engaging, patient, extremely knowledgeable and perfectly reactive to work through any problems that the attendees faced in their storytelling. Anna has inspired all of our team to communicate with meaning, giving great impact to our communications work already!
- Dr Sarah Connolly, Innovation Lead - Transforming Foundation Industries, Innovate UK
I’m delighted to have worked with Anna to deliver storytelling, presentation and media skills training at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML). She is an excellent trainer and communicator. While planning the sessions with her, she was very accommodating and helpful, talking through different options to match our needs. The sessions were engaging, insightful and inspiring and I received a lot of positive feedback from the other attendees. I would definitely recommend Anna and I hope to work with her again.
- Jennifer Lockett, Head of Integrated Research, Impact & Support Services at Plymouth Marine Laboratory