UNSPECIFIED - JUNE 24: In this screengrab, Bill Gates speaks during All In WA: A Concert For ... [+]
Although Bill Gates famously dropped out of college, he’s a life-long learner. He’s never stopped reading, taking online classes, and meeting with leading scientists.
Gates is also a student of communication and it shows in his writing. On Tuesday Gates published a 4,000-word article on his blog, Gates Notes. In clear and accessible language, he explained what scientists have learned about the Covid-19 pandemic, how the vaccines work, and what to expect.
Gates’s writing offers valuable tips for scientists, educators, and leaders who want to communicate with a broad range of people outside of their specialties.
1. Start with the big picture.
Gates’s headline summarizes the key takeaway and gives people a reason to read on:
These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
In just 52 characters (short enough to Tweet), Gates grabs the reader’s attention and previews the rest of the article.
Your readers and listeners want to know what they’ll learn. Don’t make them wait for it.
2. Use everyday words.
Gates writes about complex science in a way the average person can understand.
His blog post registers a readability score of 11, which means the average high-school junior should be able to read it.
Remarkably, the most complex section of Gates’s article—describing how an mRNA vaccine works—is written in even simpler language with a readability score of 9.
Gates uses familiar language and eliminates jargon to educate readers about the vaccine.
Since you can’t explain the vaccine to someone who doesn’t understand how the virus works, Gates starts at the beginning. First, he explains that virtually of the vaccines being studied “attack the same part of the novel coronavirus…the protein that spikes out of the virus, giving the coronavirus its crown-like shape as well as its name.”
Second, Gates explains how mRNA vaccines work (the first ones to receive emergency approval in the U.S., developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna).
According to Gates,
“It works by using messenger RNA to deliver instructions that cue your body to produce the distinctive spike protein. Then your immune system kicks in and attacks anything with that spike on it, including the COVID-19 virus.”
That’s it. In just two sentences Gates explains how the mRNA vaccine functions. Next, he devotes space to explaining why such vaccines are faster to produce in large quantities and why the vaccine development marks a ‘stunning’ achievement in healthcare.
Let’s look at the words Gates could have used but chose to leave out. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, Pfizer’s vaccine (technically, the BNT162b2 vaccine) is “a lipid nanoparticle–formulated, nucleoside-modified RNA vaccine that encodes a prefusion stabilized, membrane-anchored SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike protein.”
Gates’s explanation used just two terms from the more technical definition—RNA and spike protein. Gates is editing for language.
Most people don’t need more of a technical explanation than Gates presented. In fact, adding scientific jargon would only leave them more confused. Use words that your audience would use themselves in everyday conversations.
3. Offer context.
Gates puts science into context when speaking or writing for a broad audience.
“When I think back on the pace of scientific advances in 2020, I am stunned,” Gates writes.
Why? What made the advances so stunning? Gates provides context:
“Humans have never made more progress on any disease in a year than the world did on COVID-19 this year. Under normal circumstances, creating a vaccine can take 10 years. This time, multiple vaccines were created in less than one year.”
In another section, Gates explains how a vaccine candidate made by AstraZeneca works a little differently than mRNA ones. Gates points out that in clinical trials, the AstraZeneca vaccine was on average 70% effective (versus 94 to 95% effective for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines).
Is that bad? Again, Gates provides context:
“But 70 percent is still high enough to be effective at stopping the disease. And it’s reason to be hopeful about other vaccines that take a similar approach, such as Johnson & Johnson’s.”
What about the 5 to 10 billion doses that will be required to vaccinate the global population? Is that a lot? Will it be challenging? Without context, the number stands alone. Once again, Gates provides context:
“Well, all the vaccine companies in the world typically produce a total of fewer than 6 billion doses a year. That includes flu shots, routine childhood immunizations, and so on. So to produce all the COVID-19 vaccines needed without cutting back on any others, the manufacturing capacity will at least need to almost double, and more likely almost triple.”
Don’t assume people can put statistics into context. Connect the dots for them.
4. Provide analogies.
Regular readers of my column know that I’m a fan of using analogies to communicate complex ideas. Gates relies on analogies very often in his writing and speaking. For example, in his blog post on vaccines Gates writes that “second-source agreements” will help to ease the manufacturing burden.
I’m unfamiliar with the term ‘second-source agreements,’ but Gates explains it succinctly.
“We [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] paired vaccine companies in rich countries with counterparts in developing countries that specialize in producing safe, high-quality, and affordable doses at a very high volume,” he begins.
Now here comes the analogy—two of them.
“It’s hard to overstate how unusual these second-source agreements are. Imagine Ford offering up one of its factories for Honda to build Accords. But given the scale of the problem and the urgency of solving it, many pharmaceutical companies are seeing the benefit of working together in new ways like this...
It’s similar to how, during World War II, the U.S. ramped up its manufacturing capacity at a mind-blowing rate by converting auto factories into tank and truck factories.”
We don’t need to know all of the details about second-source agreements, so Gates provides us with a short explanation and simple analogies to offer perspective.
Scientists, educators, and leaders all play a role in communicating information that people can understand and act upon. As the world grows more complex, simple explanations will help people avoid confusion and have more trust in the organizations that provide the information.
