Develop Your Research Elevator Pitch

Make your research elevator pitch easier to understand with these tips:

• Replace complex words with more common words, like “use” instead of “utilize.” 
• Use active voice rather than passive voice
• Use short sentences
• Avoid acronyms and jargon, meaning terms that are specific to a field and may not be easily understood by those outside of it
• Avoid or define words that have a different meaning in your discipline than in the general population. For example:
  • In biology, "culture" refers to the process of growing microorganisms or cells in a controlled laboratory environment
  • In finance, “volume” refers to the number of shares of a particular stock or other investment traded over a specific period

Imagine someone has just asked you, “What are you working on? And why is it important?” Answer the question out loud, and record yourself or use a speech-to-text tool to capture what you say so you will have a written version to edit.

• Don’t overthink your answer.
• Don’t worry about getting it right the first time.
• Don’t worry about how much time you’re taking.
• Don't worry about stumbling or rambling.

Edit your draft by crossing out nonessential words. Don’t worry about leaving complete sentences or phrases—push yourself to cut as many words as possible, until you feel you can't cross out any more. Now that you have your list of key words, link them back together using as few words as possible. Rearrange their order, and leave out any words that feel redundant or unnecessary once you start writing.

Activity adapted from "Elevator Pitch"  by MIT EECS Communication Lab and MIT Biological Engineering Communication Lab, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

For this activity, you'll translate specialized terms from your research into plain language that can be understood by a broad audience. Even if you don't end up using all of the terms or their underlying concepts in your elevator pitch, this exercise will prepare you to answer follow up questions and engage in deeper conversation about your research. To prepare, it might be helpful to review any writing you have done related to your research, like journal articles, grant proposals, a thesis or dissertation, or a research prospectus.

When you're ready to write:

1. Make a list of terms and phrases related to your research that may not be familiar to a non-specialist audience.
2. Write an explanation of each term and why it matters in the context of your research, without worrying about making it fit into your elevator pitch. While you might be tempted to skip this step, it's often easier to simplify something you've already written than to aim for the simplified version right away.
3. Rewrite the explanation in more concise, simplified language.

Based on your audience, decide

• Which terms can be used and briefly explained?
• Which terms can be left out, while still explaining the underlying concepts?
• Are there any terms whose underlying concepts may be too complicated to include in an elevator pitch?

Examples

Feeling stuck while trying to explain your research in simpler terms?

Try writing your pitch with Simple Writer, a text editor from Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd and former NASA engineer. As you type, words that are not in the top 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language will turn red, encouraging you to break down complex concepts into their simplest terms. As you write, try to replace words that turn red with simpler options, but only if the replacement words still convey your meaning and don't add confusion.

For a funny example of what happens when language is so oversimplied it becomes more confusing than clear, see the xkcd webcomic "Up Goer Five" shown below, a diagram of NASA's Saturn V rocket with Simple-Writer-approved descriptions.