Description

Looking to communicate with a larger audience? To get the word out about your latest research findings or share your expertise and provide context to a current news story?

If so, you should be writing for The Conversation.

What is The Conversation: A national non-profit media network that publishes expert articles by researchers for distribution in Canada and around the globe. Since beginning in Australia in 2011, The Conversation network has expanded to several countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. The University of Guelph became a founding member of The Conversation Canada in June 2017. In addition to being published on The Conversation website, commentaries can also be picked up by other national and international media. Some of the top publications our researchers have had commentaries picked up by include TIME, Daily Mail, Washington Post, Business Insider and Huffington Post.   

Who can write for The Conversation: University faculty members and PhD students may write commentaries. They can also co-author with colleagues from other universities or with grad students.

Why should I write for The Conversation: It is an effective platform for researchers who want to reach a larger audience beyond academic journals. Commentaries published by The Conversation are read by people and picked by people from around the globe. It also an ideal way to ensure the information you share is presented in the way you want it to be presented. Authors of commentaries submit a draft and then work with an editor with The Conversation on the final piece. A commentary isn’t published until the author signs off on it.

To date more 120 University of Guelph researchers have published a total of more than 170 commentaries with the national online publication. These commentaries have been viewed more than 1,158,000 times by people from around the globe.

Not only is The Conversation an effective way of reaching a broad audience, it’s also ideal for researchers. This national news platforms enables you to shape and control what you share because you are the author.

The University will be hosting a workshop October 24 on how to write for The Conversation featuring a Conversation Canada editor. In this workshop, they will talk about the publication, show analytics depicting how far-reaching this publication is and explain the process for submitting a commentary.

You can register by contacting Deirdre Healey, manager, news service healeyd@uoguelph.ca

Any faculty and grad students who want (or have) to find a way to communicate their research should attend.