During your studies, you will begin to build your professional skills. Professional competence includes information that can be justified. Professional competence cannot be based solely on one's own experience, everyday knowledge or general knowledge. Scientific information is often obtained by reading the literature in the field, but it is also obtained from various experts and, for example, from statistics. During the studies, professional competence is increased by getting acquainted with the researched knowledge and expert knowledge. As a student, you must be able to identify different types of information and read different texts.
An important part of building professionalism and expertise is the ability to look at individual issues from a broader perspective as well. Above all, looking at different phenomena and things requires interest and curiosity. Each of us has a lot of our own experiences and thoughts on different things. However, they are always subjective and not generalizable information.
Scientific texts bring new perspectives to various phenomena and they produce new information. However, all knowledge is always partly built on existing knowledge. This is reflected in scientific texts, in which things are justified in different ways.
A scientific text is transparent. It means that the information or text borrowed from something, as well as the author’s own interpretations and thoughts, are distinguished from each other. The scientific text is objective and impartial in style.
Special features of research communication
Research communication includes, for example, the language of science, ethics and a certain type of written work structure. For example, if you browse for theses, you will find that you will always find an abstract, an introductory chapter, the concepts and method used, and a reference list. As a reader, if I want to get a quick overview of a thesis, I can take a look at the table of contents and read the abstract. Based on this, I know if it is useful for me to read more of the work. If I want to find out the main results and conclusions of the work, I know that they can be found at the end of the work. All these aspects are related to research communication.
In research communication, ethics means, for example, that ethical principles have been taken into account in the various stages of the work. Such principles include, but are not limited to, the need for parental consent when interviewing minors. An important part of research communication ethics is understanding how to use information produced by another. This ethical principle guides the production and writing of all knowledge-based texts. References and a list of sources are one of the things to study right at the beginning of your studies.
Research communication also means communicating science and research elsewhere, for example to the media and the public. There is also often talk of scientific communication, which means both internal and external debate on science.
The degree of scientificity varies in different texts. A popular article written on the basis of research is written more generally than, for example, an article written in an international peer-reviewed publication.
A scientific text also includes the requirement of factual style. The language must be clear and consistent. During your studies, you practice writing a scientific text. According to Article 7 of the University of Applied Sciences Decree, “the aim of the thesis is to develop and demonstrate the student's ability to apply his or her knowledge and skills in a practical expert position related to vocational studies”. At the Humanities University of Applied Sciences (Humak), this requirement is demonstrated by the fact that the thesis is a commissioned work development task.
The basics of research communication are not practiced just for the purpose of writing a thesis. Since the majority of texts written at a polytechnic are knowledge-based texts, you must be able to use the right types of citation and refer to the information correctly. You will do a variety of learning assignments during your studies, using many of the basics of research communication.
Watch the communication unit Kant's producer and journalist Anne Heikkinen's video on science communication (duration 02:49, the video has subtitles).