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Unit 4: Scrutinizing the Purpose of the [Secondary] Research
18 Translation
Ok, so, remember how we talked about problems with scientific ways of knowing being related to the in-group”ness” of scientific communities? Well, that problem is also relevant to translation. Members of a scientific community talk/write a certain way. Some of this is because there are terms and phrases that have a particular meaning and are difficult to explain concisely without saying it that way (and most of our publication outlets have word limits). An academic’s bread and butter[1] is publishing. Our currency if you will. Publish or Perish, they say.
In addition to “supporting” the development and continuation of predatory journals, the way academia is designed makes translation difficult. Hear me out. Most tenured or tenure-track[2] university professors’ time is devoted to teaching, research, and service. Depending on the university/department there is a formula that dictates “allocation of effort.” For example, at Iowa, my time is 40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service. In a 40 hour work week [3] That’s 16 hours per week for research, 16 hours for teaching, and 8 hours for service. However, most prof’s don’t clock in, so to assess our “16 hours” of research universities do a lot of things like counting publications. And at the end of the day, 16 hours is not enough time to satisfy publication requirements for social scientific communication researchers, MUCH LESS also account for producing translation. Because not only do our scientific communities teach us to talk and write like the highly educated, highly trained, scholarly type people we are, they expect us to publish that way. Toss our in-group language back and forth. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it legit takes a long, long, long time to understand the language. I spent most of my first two years of graduate school (masters) writing down words I’d never heard before. My head hurt constantly during the six years I spent working on my PhD (full time) just from trying to figure out what people were saying and what I was reading. Nearly 20 years after graduating from college I finally don’t struggle to comprehend my in-group language – but that’s only within my area of expertise – especially methodologically. Give me social science and I can hold my own. Humanistic? Shew, but I have to work hard to understand. So it’s not the least bit surprising that non-academics have a really hard time making sense of academic research – making translation REALLY important. But, most academics aren’t allotted time to translate – a translation piece doesn’t “count” toward research, teaching, or service. Thankfully there’s some pushback about this and many universities and departments are working to correct the culture to support translation in research.
Learning Objectives
What is translation? Why is it important?
Translation
What is Translation?
Imagine trying to read a book that only came in a language you don’t know…How would you read it? You would have to have someone else translate it.
This same technique is used in social scientific research. It’s called Translation. Translation is when researchers take published journals that are hard to comprehend to the general public and make them understandable to the general public.
Translation allows for information to be spread and understood easily to the general population.
TEXTBOOK CONTRIBUTION
(allocation information not submitted)
In Despicable Me, the minions speak in their own language. Do you understand them? No, Gru would have to translate their words for us. In this example, the minions are the scientific journal and Gru is the scientist who is translating their scientific jargon to everyday language
Contribution from Fall 2021:
For my example, I used the movie Arrival as it is all about translation with a foreign entity. The basis of the movie is that aliens come to earth and researchers are trying to find a way to decode their language, which doesn’t represent any of those found on earth. I think this is a great example because Doc MC mentioned in chapter 4 that when she was in Grad school, she was reading and trying to decipher scholarly studies that contained language that was almost alien to her. So by the end of the movie, the humans decode the alien language and are finally able to relay the aliens’ communications to the world, which is exactly what translation is defined as in the chapter.
Translation can be a tricky methods concept because the scientific community doesn’t completely agree on how the word is used (surprise, surprise). Some people describe translation as above, the act (or product) of making [hard to understand] academic research more palatable and understandable for people without decades of academic training.
Another way that researchers and large research entities (e.g., universities, public health centers) is related to actually putting the research to practice. The University of Iowa has the Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences. Below you will see how they define translational science.
Translational Science
Translation
Process of turning observation in the lab, clinic and community into new therapies or treatments that improve the health of individuals and the public.
Stages of Research
BASIC RESEARCH
Scientific exploration to reveal fundamental mechanisms of biology, disease, or behavior. Every other stage builds on basic research.
PRE-CLINICAL RESEARCH
Connects basic science and human medicine. Here scientists apply discoveries made in a lab or clinic to understand the disease or disorder better.
CLINICAL RESEARCH
Clinical trials with human subjects to test the safety, effectiveness, and outcomes of the new therapies, drugs or treatments.
CLINICAL IMPLEMENTATION
The adoption of new therapies or treatments into clinical care for the general population. Identifies results of the clinical trial and gaps in care.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Researchers study health outcomes at a greater level to determine the effects of diseases and efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat them.
This is especially true in health communication. When described in this way, it can be hard to sort between what is basic research, what is applied research, and what is translational research (described in the “Basic Methods Vocab” video below).
What do you need to know about translational research as it pertains to identifying, analyzing, and evaluating new media and traditional sources of information?
SHOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?
As you consume information from the popular press, media, and others, you should always work your way back to the original research. Sometimes researchers might be invited to rewrite their published work to make it more accessible. For example, the National Communication Association publishes a journal called Communication Currents. The editors of this journal find research in other NCA journals that they think would be a good candidate for publication, and email the corresponding author to invite a submission. This work is both important and necessary. However, these types of translational works do not give the level of detail that you would need in order to assess if you Should Believe It.
About Communication Currents
Working from recently published NCA journal articles and emerging research and perspectives, Communication Currents explains scholarly information in straightforward language geared for broad audiences, including communication experts working with laypeople, instructors and students, the press, and other interested members of the public. Communication Currents highlights the relevance of Communication scholarship, reveals the ways in which communication impacts our world, and demonstrates the leadership of NCA in the study of Communication.
Here is another example of Translation: https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/communicating-warmly-can-help-scientists-reach-public
Check out the following example. This link leads to some of doc’s original (primary) research about cancer communication published in the journal Communication Monographs (Communication Efficacy and Couples’ Cancer Management: Applying a Dyadic Appraisal Model). Doc was invited to re-write that article for Communication Currents.
Fun fact: Doc wanted the title to be F*ck Cancer but they wouldn’t go for it.
another idiom - https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bread+and+butter ↵
This is really getting into the details but basically, universities hire people on different kinds of lines. We're going to focus on the lines associated with tenure for this example. ↵
most profs I know put in a LOT more hours but let's say 40. And don't ask my kids about how much I work because they are always blowing up my spot, telling people my hobbies are working, etc. ↵
definition
when researchers take published journals that are hard to comprehend to the general public and make them understandable to the general public
Stages of Research
