Disseminating What You Found

In practice

A unit has completed an implementation that worked and is deciding what to do with it. Step six is not optional, and the reason is not professional advancement: the next unit facing this problem will otherwise repeat the work. Choosing the form starts from who needs it. A podium presentation reaches a room and allows questions, so it suits work whose method needs defending. A poster is displayed for far longer than a talk lasts and reaches people who would never attend a session — which makes it the better choice for a straightforward finding, provided it is legible from a distance and is not a shrunken paper. Publication reaches furthest and slowest, through peer review, with authorship settled before writing rather than negotiated after. A policy brief reaches decision makers who will not read a paper. The audience is understood before the form is chosen, and health literacy is part of that understanding rather than a courtesy extended afterwards. Whichever form, the work is presented so that someone could act on it, which means the method is stated well enough to be judged. The choice of form is also a choice about time: a talk is gone when the session ends, a poster stands for the length of a conference, and a paper is findable in ten years by someone who does not know your name. Matching that reach to how long the finding will stay true is part of choosing well.