Communicating evidence in accessible ways: plain language summaries

Workshop category: 

  • Knowledge translation and communicating evidence
Date and Location

Date: 

Monday 17 September 2018 - 14:00 to 15:30

Location: 

Menteith
Contact persons and facilitators

Contact person:

Ciara Keenan

Facilitators:

Hanratty J1, Welch V2
1 Campbell Centre UK and Ireland, Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom
2 Campbell Collaboration, Canada
Target audience

Target audience: 

Review authors, consumers, patient advocacy groups

Level of difficulty: 

Basic
Type of workshop

Type of workshop : 

Training
Abstract

Abstract:

Background:
Plain language summaries are an important part of any systematic review. Well-written summaries can make a review more accessible to a wider audience. Often, review authors find it difficult to write summaries well. It is challenging to summarise months and sometimes years of hard work in simple terms. This is especially difficult when the review findings are complex, the evidence quality is mixed or findings are not clear. This workshop will provide practical help with writing in plain language.

Objectives:
The four objectives are:

- to help authors consider 'who is your audience?', 'what do they need to know?';
- to practise summarising review findings in plain language;
- to provide concrete examples of good practice;
- to give attendees information on useful resources and practical hints and tips for writing better plain language summaries.

Description:
The workshop will be interactive and practical. Participants are invited to bring their own reviews or a review of their choosing to practice writing plain language summaries but don't worry if you haven't got a review to summarise: we can provide examples for you. We will talk about why plain language summaries are so important and give examples from Cochrane and Campbell plain language summaries. We will ask participants to think about two questions: 1) who needs to know about your review? 2) what might they want to know about the review? Thinking about your audience will be the starting point for practising plain language summaries. Participants will leave the workshop with a draft plain language summary and a list of practical resources to help them write in plain language in the future.

This workshop is facilitated by Howard White, CEO Campbell Collaboration, Vivian Welch, Editor in Chief Campbell Collaboration and Jennifer Hanratty, review author, patient advocate and research fellow Campbell UK&Ireland.

Relevance to patients and consumers: 

Systematic reviews can be very long and hard to understand for people who are not experts. Plain language summaries are important for making review findings easy to understand for patients, consumers, decision-makers and other people who might use review evidence. This workshop will help participants to understand how to write plain language summaries well. We really welcome patient and consumer involvement in this workshop – you are the experts we need to hear from!