In academia, we are increasingly being encouraged to mobilize our knowledge beyond the ivory tower and build stronger relationships between our research and the public at large. One effective way of doing this is through a press release. As suggested by the University of Oklahoma library, a good press release “can help you gain wide exposure for your articles and, in the case of applied research, get your studies into the hands of patients, policy makers, and other populations that need it the most.” However, writing a press release is not something one learns to do in academia. There is no “Writing Press Releases for Researchers 101” course in college. (Well, none that was offered at mine.) And the genre itself differs from what academics typically write.
SAGE publishing has a nice downloadable reference sheet for what an academic press release should contain, which is centered on “TRUTH“: (the contents of a press release should be) Topical (or timely), Relevant (or relatable), Unusual (not “we knew this already”), Trouble (or allude to some kind of conflict), and Human interest (or show that it matters to humanity in some way).
Those are the ingredients, but writing in a way that highlights those elements, structured in the way that conforms to the expectations of the genre of “press release” may be a challenge for many academics. Here is where AI can help.
A Genre Experiment
AI chatbots like Claude and ChatGPT are pretty good at “re-genreing” existing texts. (ChatGPT will happily make your research paper into a Beatles song if you ask it to.) I tried doing this research regenreing with a paper of mine about how academic English may be changing as a function of its growing use among global academics. The title, “Evidence of ELF and non-native English forms in international journals,” is a little opaque and contains a term — “ELF — that only makes sense if you are an applied linguist. (Or live in the North Pole.) The abstract of that paper goes like this:
ABSTRACT: While the number of research articles written by non-native speakers of English and published in English-medium international journals is on the rise, little is known about the extent to which that trend may be affecting the way in which English is used in that genre. To address this gap, a corpus comprising 192 non-native English articles published in 8 different international journals, spanning two different time periods (2000–2005 and 2010–2015), was compared with a parallel native-speaker corpus from the same journals and of the exact same characteristics. Analysis of the various word and phrase lists generated by the corpora show that there are a number of lexical items used by non-native authors that are used significantly less by native speakers — if at all. The identified items were shown to be used by several different nationalities, and consistently attested in the majority of the journals sampled. Moreover, comparison between the two time periods reveals that all items have become increasingly accepted over the years. It is concluded that this exploratory study merely scratches the surface in terms of the extent of ELF that may be present in international academic publication. Directions for future research are suggested.
In other words, it is written in academ-ese. I uploaded the whole paper and asked Claude to make it into a press release. Here’s what it gave me, with elements of “TRUTH” highlighted in bold:
For Immediate Release
Evidence of “English as a Lingua Franca” Forms Appearing in Academic Journals
CURITIBA, Brazil – It’s no news that English has become the language of science around the world, used by native and non-native speakers alike. However, new research published in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes highlights an increase in the acceptance of non-native English forms, suggesting a move towards a more inclusive academic discourse. The study gives evidence that so-called “English as a Lingua Franca” (ELF) features are not only present in academic articles, but increasingly accepted even in high-profile, native English-speaking journals over time.
In one of the first studies looking at ELF from a lexical perspective in published research articles, lead author Ron Martinez identified 8 different words and phrases, like “besides,” “in this context,” and “it is interesting to” used frequently by non-native authors from a range of nationalities but hardly ever or not at all by native English speakers. Usage of these items was shown across numerous international journals in food science from 2000-2015, including those edited in the U.S. and U.K.
“The study seems to show these non-native forms going from the fringes towards the mainstream in academic writing,” said Martinez. “As more non-native scholars publish in English, the language itself appears to be evolving.”
The research complicates notions of “standard” academic English as defined solely by native speakers, and contributes to a perspective of English as a global language shaped by both native and non-native users.
Martinez acknowledged the limitations of only analyzing one academic discipline and the difficulties determining authors’ language backgrounds. However, he argued the findings point to a promising new research direction around ELF in high-stakes publications.
“We may just be scratching the surface concerning the extent to which ‘World Englishes’ are penetrating and transforming traditional discourse communities, like those found in top scientific journals,” said Martinez.
Further inquiry could examine if similar ELF trends exist across other disciplines, text histories of draft manuscripts, and attitudes of journal reviewers towards usage.
The Verdict
Claude did a pretty good job. It provided a catchy title. It made the discourse more accessible, stripping out some of the technical jargon and details about the research method. It also spoke some “TRUTH.” It tried to make the piece Topical (“English has become the language of science“), Relevant (“…a move towards a more inclusive academic discourse“), Unusual (“…not only present in academic articles, but increasingly accepted in high-profile journals“), Trouble (“The research complicates notions of ‘standard’ academic English“), and even Human interest (“the language itself appears to be evolving“).
Most importantly, Claude structured it all in a way that may have not come naturally to me. First it got the tone mostly right, giving the piece a “voice” that is different from the one I use when I write papers. If you are used to writing for journals, it may not be easy to shift that voice to the “press release” tone. It provided quotes for me, which is maybe sort of creepy since I did not say those things, but also potentially helpful showing me that inserting quotes in a release is an expected element of the genre. Further, Claude organized the discourse in the “inverted pyramid” presentation of information that is expected, foregrounding findings rather than background. Finally, Claude even provided technical elements for me, such as writing “For Immediate Release” at the top, adding hashtags at the bottom (a typical convention to signal the end of the main part of the release), and even putting sample institutional and contact info at the bottom, for me to adapt:
The Center for Research in Applied Linguistics at the University of Language Studies is devoted to advancing interdisciplinary understanding of language learning and use in diverse academic and professional contexts.
Contact:
Dr. John Smith
Director of Communications
Center for Research in Applied Linguistics
University of Language Studies
Ph: 555-0123
Email: jsmith@uls.edu
The above information is totally fictional, but not a hallucination. It is provided to help me see what the whole release should ultimately look like.
Finally, another challenge an academic might be, OK, I’ve got the release now, but where do I publish it? Claude even helped me there, suggesting venues like Times Higher Education, Faculty Focus and Inside Higher Ed, and even explaining why it offered those suggestions.
As I often say when it comes to using AI, it should be a starting point. By no means would I ever simply copy Claude output and paste it into a Word document without adapting it. But what AI was able to do is help me see the “TRUTH” in my own research. Sometimes it’s hard to see what you’ve been looking at for a long, long time in any other way. AI can help you see your own work from a fresh perspective.
