Episode 67 – How to put Figures First!

This week we had a fascinating conversation with visual science communicator extraordinaire Dr Sarah Treit. With a PhD in Neuroscience, ~25 peer-reviewed publications, and a 5-year H-index of 16, Sarah combines a strong research track record with a passion for communicating science through visuals. Through her company, Figures First, Sarah provides grant application support, including peer-review style feedback, writing, editing, and creation of visually appealing and impactful figures to help Investigators craft their story. She also shares her enthusiasm and knowledge through workshops and educational services for graduate students, faculty and other researchers.

You can follow Sarah and learn more about her work here:

Transcript

Jen (00:00:20)
Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk SciComm, a podcast by the University of Melbourne Science Communication Teaching Team. I’m Associate Professor Jen Martin and my wonderful co-host is Dr Michael Wheeler and we believe that science isn’t finished until it’s communicated.

Jen (00:00:45)
Hello everybody, I’m so thrilled to welcome you to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm where we love talking about science communication. I’m Jen and as ever I am joined by my wonderful friend and colleague and co-host Michael. G’day, Michael.

Michael (00:01:02)
G’day, Jen. There you go.

Jen (00:01:05)
Woo-hoo. I got the g’day out of you.
I’m always just testing whether you’ll do it.

Michael (00:01:09)
You got a g’day because I’m in a very good mood today Jen, because we have a very special guest joining us today. We have Sarah Treit. And Sarah has a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Alberta where she studies structural brain development in children.
And for the audience, Sarah is an accomplished researcher. So Sarah has won a prestigious award, the 2018 Sterling Clarren Research Award for her work in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
And you completed your PhD in 2015. But you know, you are a very accomplished researcher. You’ve published over 25 research papers. But in addition to your credentials in publishing, you are also an accomplished science communicator Sarah.
You actually founded a consulting service called Figures First, which is a really interesting science communication platform I guess with the aim of making scientific figures more accessible and understandable.
And you also share a lot of your work and informative graphics on social media, on Instagram and TikTok. And you’ve actually got thousands of followers across your social media platforms. And then in addition to that, you offer workshops on how to design effective figures.
So there’s lots of interesting stuff in there Sarah, that I’m really excited to dive into and discuss a little bit further. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Sarah (00:02:37)
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me here.

Jen (00:02:39)
Just listening to all of that, Sarah, I’m guessing you’re extremely busy. We’re also just chatting. I know you’ve got two young kids. I’m very very grateful to you for making time to chat with us today. You’ve got a lot going on.

Sarah (00:02:50)
Yeah, absolutely. I was a very active researcher for many years, but I actually recently left that position to do the consulting full time.

Michael (00:03:00)
Very exciting. And I mean, it sounds like you’re still able to stay in touch with kind of the world of research because you’re dealing with people from that world as well.
And I’m really interested to kind of ask, you know, how this journey all started for you really, which is around you know, how did you get interested in science in the first place and kind of what led you to dedicate years of your life doing a PhD in neuroscience?

Sarah (00:03:27)
Yeah, so my interest in neuroscience started you know, way back in undergrad, taking classes in neuroscience and biology and psychology and finding it really interesting.
And then actually on the side during my undergrad, I worked with children with autism. Really piqued my interest in developmental disorders.
After my undergrad, I actually didn’t think I was going to go to grad school. I just wanted a job, you know. So I worked as a clinical trials coordinator for a while and really loved it.
So through that process I realised Okay, I actually want to go back to school. I want to be a little bit closer to the research. So I went back to grad school. Thought I was just going to get a quick masters and leave…
And then I realized that I loved it. Like, I really didn’t think I would love it the way I did. Trying to sort of find your way in academia outside of the tenure track is really challenging.
That’s something that this job has actually really struck that balance for me. I get to be working with academics, working in that atmosphere, all that energy, but also still being slightly removed from it and in many ways getting to be my own boss.

Jen (00:04:36)
It sounds absolutely ideal though. I mean, I just love this idea of you going back to school and thinking you’re just going to do a quick masters and then discovering actually, you really love this world and you love being a researcher.
And now having found a way to stay in that world in a way that’s sustainable or works for you, I just think all of that’s awesome.
And obviously, given what we’re interested in this podcast, my next question has to be well, where did this interest in science communication come from?
Because it’s those skills that have given you this avenue to finding a way to do the work that you want to do. So when did you discover science communication was something you cared about, that you were good at? Like, I’d love to hear that part of the story.

Sarah (00:05:13)
Yeah. So for me, I think it really all started in my PhD. All PhD students obviously have to learn how to communicate in so many different ways for so many different audiences and platforms.
So I found it kind of interesting to try and work on those skills. But I think specifically, I also realized I loved making figures. So, you know, my favorite part of every paper was like diving into the data, plotting in a whole bunch of different ways, looking at it visually, trying to figure out what figures are going to go in the paper and how those are going to make it more impactful.
And it was just something you know, like I would happily spend hours editing a figure. I think it all started with that. But then also realising that there is really a gap in that area of science communication. Most grad students in grad school will be you know, they might be given access to something like an R course or something that will teach them how to actually make a graph. But they get almost no training on you know, is that actually the most effective way to present your data? Are you, you know, getting the message that you’re trying to get across to your audience?
Any area of science, you will come across really bad figures everywhere. Figures that are super confusing or convoluted or you know, just absolutely don’t hit that message that they could be. So I think it’s an area where there’s like a lot of lost potential.

Jen (00:06:36)
And they’re such important skills, you know. And the reason Michael and I do what I do is because we know that skills like those are absolutely essential to (a) being successful as a scientist, but also having impact in the real world and being able to do the work you want to do by getting grants.
And yet most scientists never learn any of this stuff. They don’t have the opportunity for any of this training. And I just love, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my life ever say before, “my favorite bit of a paper is making the figures”.

Sarah (00:07:02)
So yeah.

Jen (00:07:03)
But you know, as you say, the figures are so important. ‘Cause if I’m looking at a paper, you know, I’m reading the abstract, I’m skimming through. Generally the thing I’m looking at first is the figures and the captions.
And yet, you know, I don’t have any training in how to make good figures. I definitely will never show you any of my papers ’cause you’ll be horrified.

Sarah (00:07:21)
That’s actually how I came up with the name for my company. It took me forever to come up with a name. And I still don’t know if I love it.
But it is exactly what you just said. So the concept that you often look at the figures first. They really are, they create that first impression and they really… they are so important.

Jen (00:07:35)
100%.

Michael (00:07:37)
Yeah, I mean. We take the stance that it’s actually a fundamental part of your job as a scientist to be an effective communicator.

Sarah (00:07:44)
Yes, yeah, for sure. And if you’re trying to convince somebody to do something differently, I also try to encourage people to like think about who are you convincing and what do they need to see in that figure in order to be convinced of that message ’cause that, that should tailor or you should tailor your figure accordingly based on that.
I mean, it comes down to what you guys talk about all the time is sort of tailoring what you’re doing to your audience and like who’s going to be looking at it. What are they, what are they going to understand out of this and what do they need to get out of it?

Jen (00:08:16)
Yeah, I love hearing you speak Sarah. ‘Cause as you’ve just said, you know, it aligns exactly with what we talk about. Be clear on the why, you know, what’s the goal? Why are you sharing this information and who are you sharing it with and how are you going to tailor that message in a way that’s going to be relevant and understandable to your audience?
And you’ve said before that one of the mistakes that scientists frequently make is either not being clear on why they’re including particular data or then providing too much and kind of going overboard.
Are there other sort of key things that you see that scientists often get wrong? I’m just thinking you know, someone’s listening thinking, Ooh, you know, I’m looking at this paper I’m working on.
 Do you have sort of even a checklist people could go through if they’re looking at their figures? You know, are we talking about basic things like colour schemes and font sizes or are we thinking much more big picture about just why the hell is this in here and what are you trying to say?

Sarah (00:09:09)
Yeah, yeah. So I actually have an online course that goes through like the details of some of those questions in terms of like axis scaling and colours and all those kind of nit-picky, picky details.

Jen (00:09:15)
Perfect.

Sarah (00:09:22)
So I think if somebody’s really interested in listening to me talk about those details for a long period of time, I’d encourage them to check out my online course, but I think some of the big…

Jen (00:09:32)
So do you want to just give us the URL for that Sarah? Sorry to interrupt.

Sarah (00:09:35)
I will.

Jen (00:09:36)
Do you want to just give us? We’ll put it in our show notes as well.
But if people just Google Figures First will they find you ’cause?

Sarah (00:09:48)
So if they just go to my website at figuresfirst.ca then they will find a link to it there and then I’ll give you the actual URL.

Jen (00:09:49)
Yeah cool, awesome.
But finish listening to the podcast before you go there.

Sarah (00:09:52)
But yeah, in terms of some of the big picture things, I think thinking about where the figure is going and not using one version of that figure for everything that you do.
So if you, you know, have a figure that you’ve made for a manuscript, make sure to remember that that exact figure probably won’t work well in a talk or in a grant, because it’s likely going to contain too much detail.
So if you’re giving it in a talk, your audience gets to look at it for five seconds, and they have to be listening to you speak while you’re looking at that. So simplifying your figures or graphs, pulling out individual panels, that kind of stuff.
Same with the grant application. Simply pulling a figure in from a manuscript and shoving it into a grant doesn’t work for a few reasons.
One of them, you probably need to tailor it to the exact aim that you’re talking about within that grant. And then also space is just at such a premium in grant applications, shrinking down a manuscript figure so that it actually fits in the space that you need it to is just usually not a great method.
So be prepared to remake that figure, even if it’s just minor tweaks.
And I think manuscript figures, one of the big, big picture things that I like to remind people of is that you are writing this journal article for a specific journal with a specific audience in mind.
But as we move towards open access publishing sort of across the board, you lose control over that audience. And people from outside your research area will read it.
I mean, this is a good thing, people from outside the research area will read it. But it also can get used out of context very easily.
So thinking about trying to help your figures stand on their own outside of the context of the text in the manuscript is really important.
And this can be achieved very easily, sometimes even by just simply tweaking axis labels, legends, titles, all these little things so that people can understand it if they look at it first, instead of reading the paragraph of text that is supposed to go with it.
So and then I think the biggest piece of advice for people if they want to say improve a figure that they’re working on for a manuscript is hands down feedback. Show it to other people and make sure that they give you critical feedback about it.
I like to give it to people blind. So give it to your co-authors without giving them the caption. Make them walk you through what that figure [is] showing them, why they’re looking at it, all those important big picture pieces to it.
Because you, you really get your blinders on when you’re creating figures the same way you do with writing, where you know, you just, you know what it’s supposed to show people so you assume that that’s what it’s doing. And then in reality, sometimes you’ve actually sort of missed the mark.

Michael (00:12:42)
Yeah, that’s really interesting because you do need to specifically seek out feedback for your, for your figures, don’t you? Because oftentimes they can be a bit of an afterthought. And if you’ve got co-authors on a paper, they’ll tend to focus on the writing.

Sarah (00:12:57)
Yeah.

Michael (00:12:57)
And you really don’t want to do that because you need to have the figures as clear as possible as well. So I think that’s really great advice.
Great advice across the board, Sarah. I mean, you’ve clearly developed a really sophisticated perspective on the value of this, you know, why we need to do it and obviously the how of how you can do it as well.
And that’s something that you’re working on full time now that we touched on at the start, that very exciting leap from being embedded in the world of research to now running your own consulting business.
Yeah, I’m curious to hear a little bit more about that journey, because maybe we’ve got some listeners out there who are thinking I’ve developed some pretty good skills as part of being an academic, but I don’t quite see myself being able to stay in research full time in the future.
 Maybe they’re contemplating making a bit of a move. But it is, you know, it’s kind of a scary thought, isn’t it? So how did you approach that decision?

Sarah (00:13:59)
Yeah, it’s definitely a scary leap. That’s, that’s for sure. And I think it kind of always will be.
But for me, I tried to just sort of dip my toes in on the side enough that I could first of all, confirm that there’s actually a demand for what I’m offering, sort of. There needs to be with all businesses, you need to make sure that people actually want to pay you for what you’re doing and that they need what you’re doing.
But then also to kind of slowly build up a little bit of a, not a client base per se, but like a network of clients I would say, before jumping in full time.
But then at some point, it’s just kind of a leap of faith to some degree. Especially when you know, some of… I do have some repeat clients with people who write a lot of grants, I end up helping them with multiple things.
But it isn’t really, you do need a really wide network, I think, to be successful in academic consulting. And then you need to have sort of established relationships with universities, which can be very hard to do.
So I think you kind of have to do take a blind leap of faith that that will all sort of work out. But yeah, I don’t know if that really answered the question.

Jen (00:15:11)
No, it does. And I just think congratulations for being brave enough to take that leap of faith. And clearly it’s working out okay.
And it really makes me keen to hear your thoughts. One of the things that Michael and I talk about a bit is that we feel like you know, there’s been a big shift in Australia at least around kind of people valuing science communication.
You know, the mantra really has gone from “publish or perish” to now people know the mantra “be visible or vanish”. You know, there is a sense in, in grant applications, you know, in guidelines and promotion guidelines that people do need to be out there communicating their work to different audiences and in different ways.
So I guess I’m interested to hear, do you feel like, I mean, my suspicion would be that your business is just going to keep growing and growing and growing because you know, it’s harder and harder to get money and good communication is at the core of getting funding.
But you know, just generally, do you feel like for you and the networks you operate in, are these skills becoming more valued and more in demand?

Sarah (00:16:11)
Yeah, I think they are. And I think yeah, part of it is you’re right, there is a shift towards really placing a lot of value on science communication. But with that, it also requires professors and researchers to wear so many hats, like to really have to become experts in so many things. Grad students as well. I mean, grad students are researchers, they’re fund developers, they’re graphic designers, they’re all of the things, project managers, everything all in one.
And at some point, that just requires support. People can’t do it all and be in all the places at once. And I think universities also sort of are recognising that, that they need to provide central supports, whether that just be funding to hire consultants or whatever, to help people to do that.
Science communication doesn’t come naturally for a lot of excellent researchers, but that shouldn’t be the limitation of having their work properly communicated.
So I think it will continue to grow. And also, as you say, like you know, there is just the wealth of information out there is just enormous, even just within the academic publishing world. So you do have to become more creative with the ways that you’re communicating.
Journals are trying to do things to attract readership in different ways. And I think that the whole world is going to continue to evolve.
Also, the way we consume that information, I assume will eventually start to evolve as well, even though the academic publishing world is a little bit behind in some ways, with respect to how we consume these publications so…

Jen (00:17:52)
Yeah. And there are already shifts there, aren’t there? Things like graphical abstracts and you know, we definitely are seeing shifts, recognising that time is short and, and the tsunami of information is real.

Sarah (00:18:04)
Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Michael (00:18:06)
So in the work that you’re doing with your consulting Sarah, do you really have to keep on top of emerging trends as kind of an early adopter or someone who’s kind of at the forefront of particular trends that might be relevant to the consulting that you’re doing?
So, you know, AI for example. What are some of the trends that you’re kind of particularly excited by or that you’re tracking at the moment?

Sarah (00:18:32)
AI is a trend that I think [is] really interesting and emerging in the publishing world in that journals are starting to come out with statements about how you can and cannot use things like ChatGPT in manuscript writing and whatnot.
So I think that that is something that’s active in that academic publishing world, but I am a little bit arm’s length from. Yeah, like I guess AI will probably never be able to write you a grant if that is something that people are thinking about. It simply just doesn’t perform well enough.

Michael (00:19:04)
Could one kind of dystopian future be that you know, basically researchers are using AI to write grants, but then also using AI to review grants. So you’ve basically got ChatGPT going, Oh, this is an excellent grant. Whoever wrote this must be very advanced.

Sarah (00:19:23)
Exactly. And then image generators to make them their figures. And yeah.

Michael (00:19:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Sarah (00:19:28)
Grant writing requires a real sort of human voice to it because simply making something sound nice, but be maybe somewhat devoid of that you know, content that comes from an expert who’s really excited about that topic is just something that AI won’t be able to replace.

Jen (00:19:48)
Yeah, ’cause the person reviewing the grant has to have the sense that not only is this work incredibly important, but the person proposing the grant is absolutely the right person to do it.

Sarah (00:19:56)
Exactly.

Jen (00:19:57)
They have the experience, the expertise that you know, the knowledge, the passion, you know.
These are the right people to give this limited amount of money to.

Sarah (00:19:56)
Exactly.

Jen (00:20:04)
And I’m not sure that ChatGPT’s ever going to be excellent at doing that.

Sarah (00:20:09)
No, I don’t think it can quite convey that.
So I don’t think people will be able to use that anytime soon or at least not for successful applications.

Michael (00:20:19)
Hmm, yeah. Yeah. Really, really interesting to hear your thoughts on all of that, Sarah.
And time has really flown by and we actually have come to the moment in the podcast where we’re going to shift gears a little bit and we’re going to move into some quick fire questions.
So these are fun, lighthearted questions that we’d like to round out our chat with you today.

Michael (00:20:48)
And the first question that I’d really love to ask you is that if you had to pick an alternative career to what you’re doing now, what would it be?

Sarah (00:21:01)
Oh man. That’s a tough one. I feel like I would love if it had something to do with like travel and maybe being like a I don’t know what, like a travelling writer of some kind, that was a great job.

Jen (00:21:17)
Oh, that sounds like fun.

Sarah (00:21:18)
Or a food critic. Food critic would be a good one.

Michael (00:21:22)
I’m a food critic, but I just don’t get paid for it.

Sarah (00:21:25)
Ah yeah, exactly.

Jen (00:21:29)
So… So going back to your current job then Sarah, question two is how would you describe your work in only three words?

Sarah (00:21:38)
Oh man, it’s hard to not just think of three descriptions.
You know? like writing, editing, creating.

Jen (00:21:45)
Oh, that’s OK. That could be good. I thought you were going to go figures, first, really or something?

Sarah (00:21:53)
Yeah, yeah. I would, I would put the figures under creating.
So writing, editing, creating. Maybe those are the words, I don’t know.

Jen (00:22:01)
Yeah, perfect.

Sarah (00:22:01)
That’s a tough question.

Jen (00:22:03)
It’s all about tough questions here.

Michael (00:22:05)
It is.

Jen (00:22:05)
We’re only interested in tough questions here.

Michael (00:22:07)
We’re only interested in tough questions, yes. We’ve got a math question coming up next.

Sarah (00:22:11)
Oh no.

Michael (00:22:12)
No, I’m only joking, I’m only joking.
Yeah, [you’ve] kind of probably noticed that I am interested in food. And the next question is food related.
So drum roll… You’re hosting a dinner party, Sarah. In addition to your other friends, you can invite along one scientist either living or from history. Who would you invite and why?

Sarah (00:22:36)
Well, let’s just go with Albert Einstein and see if he enjoys the meal at all.
You know, feed him sushi or something.

Jen (00:22:44)
I think that could be very fun.

Sarah (00:22:45)
Right? Like…

Jen (00:22:46)
And I’m sure you’d have really good conversations. No, I like that one.
We’re going to add that to our list. Michael. We need to start making a list of all the people we want to come to our dinner party. Some of them will be easier to get there than others, obviously.

Sarah (00:22:56)
Yeah, yeah. That’ll be a challenge.

Jen (00:23:00)
So we’re really interested Sarah and I think this is something that you sort of alluded to in terms of deciding you didn’t want to follow the tenure track pathway. But talk to us briefly about what have you learned about how to achieve work life balance?

Sarah (00:23:16)
Hmm… Yeah, I think that can be really challenging in academia in particular and in many areas actually. But really I guess for me, I get to sort of craft my own schedule. So that helps to achieve work life balance.
Learning how to say no to things and then also sort of understanding the difference between an absolutely essential deadline and an important deadline. And you know, how you can plan ahead for these things, but also how to not let them take [over].

Jen (00:23:46)
Sounds very good.

Michael (00:23:48)
Yeah I think, I think it’s, that’s good to keep, keep in mind you know.
There’s more to life than deadlines, right?

Sarah (00:23:54)
And they, they never end. And they’re constant and they’re always on top of each other.
So it’s, you could, especially in that world.

Michael (00:24:01)
I’ve never met anyone who’s ever gotten on top of their to do list so umm…

Sarah (00:24:05)
Exactly.

Jen (00:24:05)
Nah.

Michael (00:24:06)
Yeah. If you’re out there, if you’re listening, please get in touch with us.

Sarah (00:24:11)
Yeah, teach us how.

Michael (00:24:14)
So Sarah, you’ve given us some really great advice across the board and for the last question, I’d really love to hear what your top tip is for effective science communication?

Sarah (00:24:26)
I really do think it is feedback from others. So I think that the best thing you can do is show your work to others, present your work to others. You know, get them to read your… whatever it is that you’re writing.
And try to make sure that you’re getting feedback from a diverse audience. So you want that to include people who are experts in what you’re doing. So you need that, that you know, sort of level, same level of expertise as you hold if that’s possible. And then also moving further and further outside of that and sort of see where it falls apart.
See if people who you collaborate with, but are not working closely with can understand what you’re trying to convey or trying to show.
And then even, you know, steps further out from there. We’re probably most of the time not going to create work that is fully understandable by a lay audience, but it should be understandable by at least other scientists.
If your… you know, collaborators and other people within your sphere can’t understand or don’t understand what it is that you’re showing or saying. Then you know, you really need to go back to the drawing board with that.
So I think that that is actually the number one tip. And with that, you end up learning how to do your own effective self evaluation as well. You kind of gain those skills to nitpick your own work a little bit better, the more you do it. But I think that that’s probably more valuable than any one specific you know, thing I can tell you to do.

Jen (00:25:59)
I think it’s such great advice. And I think what that also then says is your advice is to be brave, because often we really hold back from showing our work to other people because you know, it can be scary to be judged.
It’s always hard to find out something you’ve worked really hard on, maybe other people think that there’s still a lot more work you need to do.
But the point is, you’re going to find out at some point if your communication isn’t really landing with people and you might as well find out before, while there’s still a chance to do something about it.

Sarah (00:26:26)
Exactly. Yeah. And sometimes you can find you know, that one or two colleagues who you really like and trust and you can do these things for each other. So it sort of takes away that intimidation factor, as you say of trying to show your work to people.
If you always show your work to this co-worker and they do the same with you. Then you know, you build that kind of network where you can provide candid feedback to each other.

Jen (00:26:51)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’ve really liked talking with you and we really trust your advice.
I feel like I’m now immediately going to go and check out your online course, because I just think everything you’ve said makes so much sense to me.
And we all know visual communication matters.
I’m so grateful to you for making time to talk with us today, Sarah.

Sarah (00:27:10)
Sure. Thanks so much for having me.

Michael (00:27:12)
Thanks so much Sarah.

Michael (00:27:13)
Thanks for listening and thanks also to our wonderful production team, Stephanie Wong and Steven Tang for making these episodes happen behind the scenes. And thanks also to you, our listeners, for your support.
If you are enjoying these episodes, you can help spread the word by telling a friend about Let’s Talk SciComm or even sharing one of our episodes. But that’s all for this week. We’ll be back in your feed next Tuesday. See you then.