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The Journal of Clinical Child and

Adolescent Psychology

www.jccapfuturedirectionsforum.com

Let Me Help You Tell a

Story: Strategies for

Improving Writing Clarity

Andres De Los Reyes, Ph.D.

Director, Comprehensive Assessment and Intervention Program

University of Maryland at College Park

Email: adlr@umd.edu

Twitter: @JCCAP_Editor

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Overview

• Part I

• Illustrating the power of a good story (AKA: Narrative)

• Part II

• Narrative tools rule so hard, scientists should use them!

• Part III

• Guess what!? Scientists already live in a story!!

• Part IV

• Let’s clean house and figure out how to tell stories!

• Part V

• Take some narrative home tonight!

• Q and A

I Am Just a Messenger

• Not my ideas

• Everyone uses narrative tools

• Cornerstone of writing in the Humanities

• They use it in Hollywood

• e.g., Southpark

• Today, we will work through a few narrative tools

• For maximal effect, you gottaread this book→

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• We think these topics are cool….

• ….and there’s some stuff that needs to get done….

• ….and then we did a study about this stuff….

• ….and this is how we carried out our study….

• ….and then we found stuff….

• ….and let me tell you what we just told you….

• ….and parts of our study kind of sucked….

• ….and this is what future research should look like….

• ….and the end

Why Writing Clarity?

• Most writing in our field consists of a list of facts, with no component that binds these facts together

• And when people write this way, they typically write forgettable pieces of work

• But don’t you want people to remember your work?

• Therefore, the strategies we discuss today will help you write articles, grants, books, blogs, and tweets in a way that boosts their clarity, readability, and ultimately impact on the reader

• Hint: I just gave the main strategy away ☺

Just the Facts?

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Part Ia:

A powerful Illustration

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Part Ib:

Narrative tools worked for Lincoln,

and for anyone else who wants to

tell a good story!

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Part Ic:

Narrative tools can help us!

Low-cost methods exist for measuring physiology when clinically assessing adolescent

social anxiety. Two barriers to widespread use involve lack of (a) physiological expertise

among mental health professionals, and (b) techniques for modeling individual-level

physiological profiles. We require a “bridge approach” for interpreting physiology that does

not require users to have a physiological background to make judgments, and is amenable

to developing individual-level physiological profiles. One method—Chernoff Faces—

involves graphically representing data using human facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, face

shape), thus capitalizing on humans’ abilities to detect even subtle variations among facial

features. We examined 327 adolescents from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives

Survey (TRAILS) study who completed baseline social anxiety self-reports and physiological

assessments within the social scenarios of the Groningen Social Stressor Task (GSST).

Using heart rate (HR) norms and Chernoff Faces, 2 naïve coders made judgments about

graphically represented HR data and HR norms. For each adolescent, coders made 4

judgments about the features of 2 Chernoff Faces: (a) HR within the GSST and (b) aged-

matched HR norms. Coders’ judgments reliably and accurately identified elevated HR

relative to norms. Using latent class analyses, we identified 3 profiles of Chernoff Face

judgments: (a) consistently below HR norms across scenarios (n = 193); (b) above HR

norms mainly when speech making (n = 35); or (c) consistently above HR norms across

scenarios (n = 99). Chernoff Face judgments displayed validity evidence in relation to self-

reported social anxiety and resting HR variability. This study has important implications for

implementing physiology within adolescent social anxiety

assessments.

De Los Reyes et al. 2017, Psychological Assessment

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Part II:

I’m sold, what is this narrative

magic you speak of?

Disclaimer:

From here on out, no magic

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Storystohr-ee│noun

“A series of events that happen along the way

in the search for a solution to a problem”

(Olson, 2015)

Everyone Should Be

Telling Stories

• Everyone = Anyone who wants to effectively communicate a message to an audience

• Scientist writing an article

• Therapist working with a client

• Student writing a term paper

• Filmmaker working on a movie

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What’s the Big Deal

With Stories?

• Because brains!

• People’s brains react to stories

• People’s brains “turn off” when you just list off facts

• People get strokes if all you give them is complexity

• Simple = memorable

• Story helps simplify your message so that anyone, regardless of expertise, can understand you

Every Great Story Has

Three Components

• AND (AKA, Thesis)

• BUT (AKA, Antithesis)

• THEREFORE (AKA, Synthesis)

• The ABT’s of a good story

• That abstract we just saw had A’s, B’s, and T’s

• Let’s take another look…

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Low-cost methods exist for measuring physiology when clinically assessing adolescent

social anxiety. Two barriers to widespread use involve lack of (a) physiological expertise

among mental health professionals, and (b) techniques for modeling individual-level

physiological profiles. We require a “bridge approach” for interpreting physiology that does

not require users to have a physiological background to make judgments, and is amenable

to developing individual-level physiological profiles. One method—Chernoff Faces—

involves graphically representing data using human facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, face

shape), thus capitalizing on humans’ abilities to detect even subtle variations among facial

features. We examined 327 adolescents from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives

Survey (TRAILS) study who completed baseline social anxiety self-reports and physiological

assessments within the social scenarios of the Groningen Social Stressor Task (GSST).

Using heart rate (HR) norms and Chernoff Faces, 2 naïve coders made judgments about

graphically represented HR data and HR norms. For each adolescent, coders made 4

judgments about the features of 2 Chernoff Faces: (a) HR within the GSST and (b) aged-

matched HR norms. Coders’ judgments reliably and accurately identified elevated HR

relative to norms. Using latent class analyses, we identified 3 profiles of Chernoff Face

judgments: (a) consistently below HR norms across scenarios (n = 193); (b) above HR

norms mainly when speech making (n = 35); or (c) consistently above HR norms across

scenarios (n = 99). Chernoff Face judgments displayed validity evidence in relation to self-

reported social anxiety and resting HR variability. This study has important implications for

implementing physiology within adolescent social anxiety assessments.

De Los Reyes et al. 2017, Psychological Assessment

Part III:

Scientists already live in a story

(it’s just that the place is a mess)

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IMRAD

• Introduction

• Methods

• Results and Discussion

• Template for over a century of journal article formats

• Great “house” for a nice story, but what’s the problem?

Nothing in IMRAD Makes

Sense Without Narrative

• Your paper has a great “house” with IMRAD….

• But your house will fall apart without solid foundations

• Before ABT, you need to understand its precursor and also what ABT builds up to

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Word

• What is the one word at the core of your paper?

• Let’s try an exercise: Here is an example

• Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

• Another abstract…..but first a study

• Rely on adolescent self-reports and parent reports about adolescents

• Low correspondence between reports– Makes decision-making

difficult, results in questioning adolescent’s reports

• May benefit from additional informants– Observe behavior in contexts

that parents do not

Assessments of Adolescent

Social Anxiety

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Adolescent social anxiety (SA) assessments often include adolescent and parent reports,

and low reporting correspondence results in uncertainties in clinical decision-making.

Adolescents display SA within non-home contexts such as peer interactions. Yet, current

methods for collecting peer reports raise confidentiality concerns, though adolescent SA

assessments nonetheless would benefit from context-specific reports relevant to adolescent

SA (i.e., interactions with unfamiliar peers). In a sample of 89 adolescents (30 Evaluation-

Seeking; 59 Community Control), we collected SA reports from adolescents and their

parents, and SA reports from unfamiliar peer confederates who interacted with adolescents

during 20-minute mock social interactions. Adolescents and parents completed reports on

trait measures of adolescent SA and related concerns (e.g., depressive symptoms), and

adolescents completed self-reports of state arousal within mock social interactions.

Adolescents’ SA reports correlated with reports on parallel measures from parents in the

.30s and with peer confederates in the .40s-to-.50s, whereas reports from parent-

confederate dyads correlated in the .07-to-.22 range. Adolescent, parent, and peer

confederate SA reports related to reports on trait measures of adolescent SA and

depressive symptoms, and distinguished Evaluation-Seeking from Community Control

Adolescents. Confederates’ SA reports incrementally predicted adolescents' self-reported

SA over-and-above parent reports, and vice versa, with combined Rs ranging from.51-.60.

These combined Rs approximate typical correspondence levels between informants who

observe adolescents in the same context (e.g., mother-father). Adolescent and peer

confederate (but not parent) SA reports predicted adolescents' state arousal in social

interactions. These findings have implications for clarifying patterns of reporting

correspondence in clinical assessments of adolescent SA.

Deros et al. (2018), Behavior Therapy

Peers

• Nothing in low parent-adolescent correspondence makes sense except in the light of peer-reports.

• Now my paper has a voice! A talking point I can always go back to when communicating my main message

• Build sentences, paragraphs, and the entire paper with this message in mind

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Now You Try!

• Brave souls needed!

• Easier: Think about your research interests and come up with a sentence that binds it all together, e.g.:

• Nothing in comorbidity between anxiety and ADHDmakes sense except in the light of emotion regulation.

Words build up to a….

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Sentence

• Elevator pitch

• Every great pitch has an opening, twist, and resolution (i.e., ABT)

• Use ABT to turn audiences’ collective brain on

• 1: Lay out the facts, joined by “and”

• 2: Middle of the story, the “but,” sets up a problem, and turns the story in a new direction, introduces tension

• 3: End of the story, the “therefore,” resolves tension, ties all up in a bow

ABT: Slayer of Monotony

• ABT breaks monotony by helping you grab your audiences’ attention

• Start by crafting a single ABT sentence, e.g.,….

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Adolescent social anxiety (SA) assessments often include adolescent and parent reports,

and low reporting correspondence results in uncertainties in clinical decision-making.

Adolescents display SA within non-home contexts such as peer interactions. Yet, current

methods for collecting peer reports raise confidentiality concerns, though adolescent SA

assessments nonetheless would benefit from context-specific reports relevant to adolescent

SA (i.e., interactions with unfamiliar peers). In a sample of 89 adolescents (30 Evaluation-

Seeking; 59 Community Control), we collected SA reports from adolescents and their

parents, and SA reports from unfamiliar peer confederates who interacted with adolescents

during 20-minute mock social interactions. Adolescents and parents completed reports on

trait measures of adolescent SA and related concerns (e.g., depressive symptoms), and

adolescents completed self-reports of state arousal within mock social interactions.

Adolescents’ SA reports correlated with reports on parallel measures from parents in the

.30s and with peer confederates in the .40s-to-.50s, whereas reports from parent-

confederate dyads correlated in the .07-to-.22 range. Adolescent, parent, and peer

confederate SA reports related to reports on trait measures of adolescent SA and

depressive symptoms, and distinguished Evaluation-Seeking from Community Control

Adolescents. Confederates’ SA reports incrementally predicted adolescents' self-reported

SA over-and-above parent reports, and vice versa, with combined Rs ranging from.51-.60.

These combined Rs approximate typical correspondence levels between informants who

observe adolescents in the same context (e.g., mother-father). Adolescent and peer

confederate (but not parent) SA reports predicted adolescents' state arousal in social

interactions. These findings have implications for clarifying patterns of reporting

correspondence in clinical assessments of adolescent SA.

Deros et al. (2018), Behavior Therapy

ABT Applied to

Social Anxiety Abstract

• SA assessments rely on reports from adolescents and parents, butthese reports commonly disagree and make decision-making difficult, therefore, in our study we collected peer reports as well, which helped us understand how adolescents’ reports relate to reports from observers who vary in the contexts where they observe adolescents (e.g., home vs. peer interactions)

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Now You Try!

• More brave souls!

• Take a crack at your own ABT sentence

• Remember, you are looking for a “Goldilocks zone” of story

• Stay away from TMI (AAA)

• Also stay away from too much complexity (Despite, However, Yet)

• Just right: ABT

• Just enough information to create tension, and then resolve tension

Words and sentences

build up to a….

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Paragraph

• Final tool in your “story toolbox,” and hardest to implement

• But, if you master it, the result will be an even firmer command of story than you get with mastering words and sentences

• Therefore, job here is not to help you master paragraphs, just get you motivated to master on your own

Paragraph

• Think about story, “Hollywood style”

• 1. In an ordinary world

• 2. A flawed protagonist

• 3. Has a catalytic event, upending her/his world

• 4. After taking stock

• 5. Protagonist commits to action

• 6. But when the stakes get raised

• 7. Protagonist must learn a lesson

• 8. In order to stop the antagonist

• 9. To achieve her/his goal

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Think About it This Way….

• 1 = Beginning of your intro

• 2 = Your area of research

• 3 = Big hole in research

• 4 = Rationale/purpose of study

• 5 = Method

• 6 = Results (confirm hypotheses, but study has limitations)

• 7 = Discussion/Limitations

• 8 = Discussion/Limitations can be addressed in future work

• 9 = Implications/Conclusion

Not the Only Formula!

• As you master word and sentence, continue “playing” with paragraph

• Do not expect to get this one as easily as you may have gotten the first two

• As you learn to see the forest in the ABT trees, applying narrative structure to your work will become second nature

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Part IV:

Let’s play “House”!

Let’s Make Some

ABT Happen!

• First thing’s first

• Let’s look at some abstracts

• They all need a diagnosis!

• One of these will apply to each abstract that we read:– AAA (And, And, And)

– DHY (Despite, However, Yet)

– ABT

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Diagnosis, Abstract 1: ?

Diagnosis, Abstract 1: DHY

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Diagnosis, Abstract 2: ?

Diagnosis, Abstract 2: ABT

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Diagnosis, Abstract 3: ?

Diagnosis, Abstract 3: AAA

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Diagnosis, Your

Neighbor’s Abstract: ?

Diagnosis, Your

Neighbor’s Abstract:

What Did You Find?

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Part V:

Take some narrative home tonight!

ABT and You

• Take an abstract from one of your papers-in-progress

• Rewrite it using ABT

• Explain your new ABT abstract to someone outside of the field (e.g., relative, friend)

• Always be telling stories!!

• If they understand your story, then congrats, you just wrote the “mini” version of your paper’s new house ☺

• The complete version of your paper should be a “stretched out” version of your new ABT abstract!

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The Journal of Clinical Child and

Adolescent Psychology

www.jccapfuturedirectionsforum.com