Good communication makes all the difference
WHEN Dr Patrick Hodgson wrote his PHD on the Spanish influenza pandemic in Queensland, he thought it would be read by a handful of people, but largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been downloaded about 4700 times.
“It was all pretty amazing,” he said.
“I take great satisfaction that the most common feedback is that the thesis is an ‘easy read’ for anyone, which is what I intended and generally how I write.”
Dr Hodgson also never thought he’d appear on national television, with an interview on ABC’S The Drum helping to spike interest in his research.
“I felt validated and thrilled that a national program had found my thesis and thought it worthy of national exposure,” he said.
“I am still surprised by the number of people who contact me and say ‘I saw you on The Drum, you were great’.”
As more interviews followed, Dr Hodgson feels that the experience has reaffirmed his belief in the importance of effective research communication, not just its availability, but also its readability.
“It needs to be written in a way that is easy to read, yet academically credible,” he said. “The public accepts the necessity for academic rigour, however, no one is going to read, let alone absorb, research that is not easy to read and understand.”
Dr Hodgson is still being contacted occasionally by journalists and he hopes his research is making a difference to how we remember the past.
“It has taken a hundred years, but perhaps Australian institutions, governments, and society as a whole are now ready to acknowledge that deaths through sacrifice during a civil crisis, such as a pandemic, and not just military deaths alone, are worthy of public memory and commemoration,” he said.
“It is very rewarding to think I may have played a part in this.”
FACE masks and plastic takeaway containers were literally the stuff of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But millions of them are now in our waterways and natural areas, creating a daunting task for Clean Up Australia volunteers tomorrow.
Used masks have become a dispiriting sight across suburban Australia since the pandemic hit, and have even been spotted in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Clean Up Australia spokeswoman Pip Kiernan, daughter of the movement’s founder Ian, said many volunteers would be taking a count of face masks during Sunday’s event.
Olympic silver-medal-winning swimmer Taylor Mckeown, 25, is just one of the thousands of volunteers
pitching in for this year’s Clean Up, which is set to be the biggest ever, with 300 more sites registered than the previous record.
“They say everything flows to the sea and that’s become more and more evident the more diving I do,” she said. “Any time I go diving if I see debris I’ll clean it off the reef. I can’t ignore it, I have to take it with me.”