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Engage and convince your audience with a well-adapted SCQA

You crafted an SCQA about your work. Nice! Now you can use this SCQA for all of your future presentations and texts, right? Well, that depends on who your audiences will be. Let me show you an example of how an SCQA about the same topic can look entirely different for different audiences.

Let’s imagine I am a geneticist that studies a genetic disorder in Friesian horses. Me and my co-authors found the mutation that causes this disorderThe research comes from this article by Ducro et al. (2015). Now I want to present my work to two different audiences. For both of them I made a different SCQA.

Audience 1: colleagues

I am first presenting my work to my colleagues in the weekly research group meeting.

My colleagues are all animal geneticists. What interests them, is animals in general and animal genetics in particular. Some of them have experience with studying genetic disorders and/or the techniques that I use, but others don’t. Many of them have experience with keeping animals. They have pets or hobby animals, and many of them grew up on a farm. But not all of them are familiar with Friesian horses. Their ambition is to solve their own research problems. Therefore, they want to learn new techniques that can help them do that.

My goal is to introduce my colleagues to the combination of techniques that I used, so they can apply it to their own research too, if relevant.

Below is the SCQA I prepared for them. Click on the little arrows to learn how I adjusted my SCQA to my colleagues.

Situation

  • Look at these majestic large black horses (show picture). 
  • These are Friesian horses. You may have seen them before when you were in the countryside, especially in the Dutch province of Friesland. Or you may have seen them in movies, where they are often starring because of their elegance (show picture of Friesian horse in historic tv series). 
  • They are mostly used for recreational riding and for shows.I start in the world of my audience by showing pictures and telling where they may recognize Friesian horses from. Given that they love animals in general, I am pretty sure that this will make them care about Friesian horses.

Complication

  • But the Friesian horse breed is facing a threat. Relatively many Friesian horses are born dead, with an excessively large head. These foals suffer from an excessive amount of fluid in their brain: hydrocephalus.
  • A stillborn foal is a sad loss for all involved: of course for the foal, but also for the mare that loses its foal and has a very difficult delivery. And also the horse owner suffers a loss, or even two if the mare dies during delivery.I stress the urgency of the hydrocephalus problem by showing the effects on the foal, mare and horse owner. This will resonate with my colleagues, because they can imagine what it’s like to lose a beloved animal (and some may have experienced it themselves).
  • Genetics seems to play an important role in hydrocephalus.
  • If we can find out which mutation(s) cause the disease and how they are inherited from parents to offspring, we could probably prevent the disease from occurring.Here I list the hurdles I need to take to prevent hydrocephalus.
  • If you are looking for causal variants of diseases in your own research, then pay attention! The combination of methods that we used may be helpful for you as well.I end the Complication by mentioning my call to action. This teaser will make them curious for the Answer.

Question

  • Which mutation(s) are involved in hydrocephalus in Friesian horses, and how are they inherited?

Answer

  • To find mutation(s) causing hydrocephalus, we first performed a genome-wide association study in 13 cases and 69 controls using 29,720 SNPs. This method is not specific enough to discover causal mutations, but it is relatively cheap and it pointed us to a region that was likely to contain the causal mutation. We then performed a more expensive but very specific next generation DNA sequence analysis of gene exons within that region, using 4 cases and 6 controls.I include many details on how I conducted my analyses. This is important because (1) my colleagues want to learn new methods to potentially solve their own research problems, and (2) my call to action is for them to apply my methods, if applicable. They can only do that if they understand how those methods work. When I turn this SCQA in a final presentation, I will add even more details. I will need to give an explanation of ‘genome-wide association study’ and ‘next generation DNA sequence analysis’. Part of my audience doesn’t know exactly how these methods work.

    (Please note that this research was performed in 2015. At that time this approach was novel. At present, these methods are much more common.)
    • We found a mutation in β-1,3-N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase 2 as the likely cause of hydrocephalus in Friesian horses.Here I solved hurdle 1
  • To find the mode of inheritance, all horses in our data were tested for the mutation.
    • All diseased horses and none of the non-diseased horses were homozygous. All mothers of the diseased horses were heterozygous. Therefore, this is a recessive disorder, which only comes to expression if both parents are carriers.Here I solved hurdle 2. Note that I first showed the results of hurdle 1, before continuing with the materials and methods of hurdle 2. This creates more variation in my story, than when I would first show materials and methods for all hurdles, and then results for all hurdles. The extra variation makes it easier to keep my audience’s attention.
  • If a DNA test would be performed on all Friesian horses, mating between carriers of the mutation could be avoided. That way, no more foals would be born with hydrocephalus, which means more live and healthy foals and less birthing difficulties for mares.I show the benefits of my solution, by showing what a world without hydrocephalus in Friesian horses would look like. I use the same elements that I used to describe the urgency in the Complication (stillborn foals, birthing difficulties).  
  • If you would like to use the same approach (using GWAS first, to be able to apply next generation sequencing only to the most promising regions) to detect causal variants of a disease in your own research, then please come to me in the break and we can brainstorm about it.I end by, again, mentioning my call to action to my colleagues. I made it as actionable as possible, by telling them exactly what they can do next to learn more about my approach.

Audience 2: Friesian horse breed organization

Now I am presenting my work to the board of the Friesian horse breeding organization. They define the regulations that Friesian horse owners have to follow when they want to breed (mate) their horse.

The breeding organization has been involved in our research very much. They want to get rid of hydrocephalus, because it affects their horses and ruins the pleasure of breeding Friesian horses for them and their members. Because of this ambition, they supported the research financially and collected data samples for us. They already know that we have found the mutation causing hydrocephalus and that we have developed a DNA test. Now they want to know how to use this DNA test in practice.

My goal is to convince the board to make it mandatory to do this DNA test on every horse used for breeding, and to prohibit mating between two carriers of the mutation that we found in our study.

Below is the SCQA I wrote for them. Again, click on the arrows to learn how I adjusted my SCQA to the board of the breeding organization.

Situation

  • Thank you for all your help with collecting data. It helped us find the mutation that causes hydrocephalus, and we have developed a DNA test.I don’t have to give any background information about Friesian horses or hydrocephalus for this audience. They were very much involved in the research, so I can get to the point quickly. To involve them in my talk, I immediately acknowledge their role in the project.
  • That’s a major step towards eliminating this disease, which would be a big relief for you and your members. No more stillborn foals with excessively large heads!Here I remind them of why we’re doing this research. This helps show the urgency of the remaining problem that I’ll introduce in the Complication.

Complication

  • But we are not there yet. We first need to decide on how to use this DNA test in practice, to avoid the birth of foals with hydrocephalus.The problem that I focus on here is more specific than the problem I focused on for my colleagues. That’s because this audience is more interested in hearing what they can do in practice, than in hearing how the scientific problem was solved.
  • For the DNA test to be workable in practice, it should be easy to apply, not too expensive, and the test outcome should not restrict your breeding programme too much.Here I show the hurdles, which are focused on this audience. I show the requirements that the use of the DNA test should meet for the studbook and its members to be content.

Question

  • How can we apply the DNA test for the mutation that causes hydrocephalus in an easy and affordable way that is not too restrictive on the breeding programme, to avoid birth of foals with hydrocephalus?

Answer

  • We now know that a horse needs 2 copies of the mutation to get the disease. This can happen only if both parents carry the mutation.
  • Hence, if your members would always do a DNA test in advance of mating plans, and you would prohibit mating of two carriers, you would avoid foals with hydrocephalus.Below I show how this solution meets all the requirements of a workable solution, that I mentioned in the Complication.
    • The DNA test is easy to do: horse owners just need to send a couple of hairs of the horse to the lab.
    • The DNA test costs 87 euros. This may not be cheap, but it definitely outweighs the hundreds to even thousands of euros spent on having a horse bred with a stillborn foal as a result. And some horses do not need to be tested at all, if both their parents are confirmed non-carriers.
    • Your members are not restricted too much in their breeding plans: they can still breed carrier horses. They just have to make sure they mate them with a non-carrier horse.
  • We strongly recommend you make it mandatory to carry out the DNA test and to prohibit mating between carriers. You can do that, for example, by excluding foals from the stud book if both of their parents carry the mutation. Or you can give a fine when someone mates two carriers.Here I state my call to action. To make it as actionable as possible, I give some suggestions on how they can do it.
  • Doing a DNA test and prohibiting mating between carriers will be a quick and easy way to make the loss of foals and mares through this disease a story of the past.To conclude the story, I show what will happen if the board of the organization takes my advice.

Bottom line: your SCQA may look entirely different for different audiences. So next time you are preparing for a presentation or text, make sure you adjust your SCQA to that audience specifically.