Communication is essential for science. We write papers, proposals, reviews, recommendation letters. Some of us also like and share, tweet and re-tweet. And the further our words go, we give our science a bigger chance to shape the world. But most of our words don’t fall beyond a rather small circle of people. An echo chamber high in the ivory tower.

At the 2018 Plant Science Center symposium, we would like to let the participants try to reach a wider audience than that of conventional symposia. We’re organizing a small scientific haiku (sciku) competition through Twitter to let our participants explore more possibilities in communicating their science.

To take part in our sciku competition, simply tweet your sciku under the two hashtags: #sciku #psc2018

There will be prizes for the most retweeted and most liked scikus!

 

What is a sciku?

Basically, a science-related haiku, a Japanese verse form. Although there are well-defined metrics for writing haikus, its strict definition is not always applied. Thus, a sciku is typically a short verse (3 to 5 lines, but sometimes more) illustrating a scientific concept. It fits perfectly into a tweet. You can also check the definition from the Sciku Project to learn more.

Some sciku examples: