Explain Your Economics Research in 15 Seconds
Can you explain a research paper in only fifteen seconds? We worked with Tommaso Sonno (CEP) to turn his award-nominated research into a hyper-succinct pitch – without losing the important details
In order for any explanation to work, you need to keep three key points in mind:
What’s the Problem?
Start off by raising the issue at stake – what needs “fixing”? This can even be as blunt as “we don’t entirely know why…”, so long as it raises a challenge.
Why should people care?
Some people might not already know why your problem is, well, such a problem to begin with. Making them care has to be your top priority – is it something that has affected them all along? Does it affect how their tax money would be spent?
What are the results? What are the benefits?
When time’s limited, you need to drop the methodology and skip straight to the findings. What do we know now that we didn’t before? Who stands to gain from this? What could we go on to do as a result of this research?