If I had to author a popular article based on a scientific journal, there would be quite a few things that I would be sure to include in order to make it appealing to the general audience while maintaining its scientific accuracy. First and foremost, I would absolutely make sure to include quotes from the author(s) of the scientific journal. Adding this enables the reader of the popular article to gain insight into what went on in the mind of the original author while conducting his or her experiment, and as a whole, I believe that it actually increases the credibility of the popular article. Second, I think it is important to make connections of the study at-hand to things of a light-hearted nature, such as pop culture. By doing this, the reader is able to relate more to the article, and the references may be able to help the reader understand the journal to a greater extent.

Something interesting I noticed is that a large sum of popular articles did not contain a single graph from their respective scientific journal – not even a simple one. This leads into my third point, which is that I would add a couple of simple graphs and images from the scientific journal in order to make the piece more colorful, and actually quantify some statistics from the journal. Lastly, and arguably most importantly, I would do my best to avoid any bias in my writing. Not only can taking a specific argumentative standpoint ruin the credibility of one’s piece, it can also make it unappealing due to lack of factual information, which may cause the reader to easily lose interest. All in all, the two most important questions to ask yourself while writing a popular article are “will the reader want to continue reading this?” And “Is everything 100% accurate?” With these questions in mind, a unique and credible popular article is sure to be produced!