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Mike Morrison

@mikemorrison.bsky.social

2.4K followers 2.9K following 1.2K posts

#betterposter guy · PhD, Work Psychology · Studying how to make scientists’ tools easier to use · Redesigning #ScientificPublishing @Curvenote.com · 📽️ Manifesto: https://youtu.be/WBjhxjWDiHw · Pathologically friendly 😀

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Nov 18

Hi!👋

I made that silly, viral YouTube cartoon that helped 250,000 of you redesign your research poster.

#betterposter
v1 t.co/wyXhiP5CKl
v2 t.co/q1g4SsSrlS

I use science & design to improve your experience with scientific articles, posters, publishing — and beyond!🧑‍🚀

Mission:
youtu.be/WBjhxjWDiHw

Let's Make Science User-Friendly | Mike Morrison

YouTube video by I/O Shaken & Stirred

youtu.be

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you! Will DM actual research questions.

Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 1d

Could use a few more participants in our study of scientific slide design. Got a sec to go through some example slides then rate them? 🙏
nimble.li/p9lxzlz9

As a bonus, you get to learn some random facts.

#scienceUX

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 4d

lol I was all “wait, can I use an emoji?” And then so happy when that worked.

Reposted by Mike Morrison

Sara Kobilka (she/her) @renwoman.bsky.social · 6d

It's time to talk visual science communication again!
@waterwhysua.bsky.social is back with unique conversations around visual science communication including @mikemorrison.bsky.social Oct. 17.
Free talks every other Friday on Zoom start tomorrow. Register now waterwhys.org/seminar/fall... #SciComm

Flyer for Water Whys Visual SciComm Seminar Fall 2025 Series with pictures of speakers and their talk information. October 3 at 11am noon / 2pm ET, Celeste Frazier Barthel's talk is Visual Science Communication Goes 3D. October 17 (same time) Mike Morrison's talk is Design, for Scientists: Help people pay attention to research and love it. October 31 (same time) Shiloe Fontes' talk is Where Science Meets Art: Sparking Curiosity Through Creativity. November 14 11am AZ time/1pm ET Megan Roxbury's talk is Creative Negotiation: Navigating Interdisciplinary Teams and Projects. Register for each session separately to receive Zoom link, registration link in post.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 8d

Cool poster and cool program! And 💯 totally agree that posters can be like a main event instead of the afterthought. Where else can you learn such a wide array of new research so fast with so much individual creativity?

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

Peter N. Dudley @conservation.bio · Aug 12

Big believer that posters are better than talks at conferences. After presentating my first #BetterPoster at #ESA2025, that has only been reinforced.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 13d

😍 So happy to see this. HHMI is going to create so much positive change in scientific publishing with this.

Now that big funders are embracing the preprint, we can focus on upgrading the preprint to be better than the journal article ever was. Born #openacces makes so much possible.

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 13d

HHMI adopts Plan U journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Reposted by Mike Morrison

Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 13d

better than average science day?

• sperm whale eating a giant squid confirmed
• HHMI policy: preprints as most important form of publication

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 13d

HHMI adopts Plan U journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 17d

This is really motivating. Some evidence that if we help people self-discover science, it’ll help science erode mere popular opinion a little?

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

Jarren Nylund @jarrennylund.bsky.social · 17d

Across two studies, we found that short conversations with ChatGPT led climate sceptics to report lower confidence in their sceptical views and small increases in pro-environmental intentions.

You can read the article here:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A mock-up of what the first spread of “The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism” (Hornsey et al., 2025) article would look like printed.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · 23d

As a species, can we please agree to write all dates like "Sep 10" instead of 10/9 or 9/10?

Signed,
– An American expat in Hong Kong who is not sure if this Australian yogurt is expired.

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

David Green, PhD @ecologistgreen.bsky.social · 29d

What do you think will be the short- and long-term consequences of these new payment limits in #AcademicPublishing?

Do you think publishers will just raise their rates to the new cap?

🧪

David Green, PhD @ecologistgreen.bsky.social · Sep 3

It's outrageous that taxpayer dollars were ever used to pay more than $2000 to publish a single article.

While it does cost money to have research peer-reviewed and published, the system doesn't make sense when the big publishers are making more money than Google or Amazon.

🧪 #SciPub #AcademicSky

NIH details options for limiting its payments for open-access publishing fees

Other publishing proposals would scrap reimbursements or pay peer reviewers, unprecedented steps for a major government funder

www.science.org

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

I think same?!

Reposted by Mike Morrison

adventurertom.bsky.social @adventurertom.bsky.social · Sep 5

2, please 2.

Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

Which would you prefer?
1. ChatGPT
2. Google & The entire internet --- but without ads, spammy content, etc. Like recipe sites would just give you the recipe with photos.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

Same. They ruin/ed everything eventually.

Never thought I’d miss “one banner at the top and that’s it!”

Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

That’s both more elegant and slightly more insane than my approach of saving Frankenstein-stitched screenshots of the “good parts” of the recipe page 😂

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

Claudio Tennie @ctennie.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is also why, whenever I eventually manage to get a recipe I like, I hold on to it for dear life (and so I save the actual recipe part in my phone's telephone book - as if it were a person)

Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

Which would you prefer?
1. ChatGPT
2. Google & The entire internet --- but without ads, spammy content, etc. Like recipe sites would just give you the recipe with photos.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 5

Which would you prefer?
1. ChatGPT
2. Google & The entire internet --- but without ads, spammy content, etc. Like recipe sites would just give you the recipe with photos.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 2

For posters! Articles are KIND OF different. You may have 1 minute or more of avg attention versus 10sec with posters. And trad journals are rigid.

It is a really counter-intuitive way to think about storytelling though. I still struggle with it daily even though I’m out here preaching it.

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

williamlmiller.bsky.social @williamlmiller.bsky.social · Sep 2

This is fascinating but frustrating to hear. I already wrote my paper. I am waiting to see if it is accepted by the journal. The conclusion is extremely abstract and counterintuitive without carefully laying out the reasoning that built it. My first book follows this pattern though. #writersky

Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Aug 18

💯 This is exactly what I've been trying to say in like 100 workshops and videos on research posters.

State a conclusion, then defend it.

Versus working up to it over 500 words that people won't spend the time to read.

ShinyBlackShoe (Calum Polwart) @shinyblackshoe.bsky.social · Aug 10

Interesting article suggesting we turn all of what we are taught in academia about how to write stuff on its head...

I think this is exactly the sort of thing @mikemorrison.bsky.social et al have been saying with posters. While there is "logic" to how we learn to do it, if your audience hasn't...

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Sep 1

Doctors Without Borders goes #betterposter! 🥳

Our #ScienceUX community created an evidence-based poster template to improve science communication at the MSF Pediatric conference this year.

Video explains design choices:
youtu.be/1QoYDeYu59k

Helping Doctors Without Borders improve their research posters

YouTube video by Mike Morrison, PhD

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Aug 20

Well said! Hadn’t even thought of this as being made worse by scope creep but you’re totally right.

Anyways, will have more updates on embed adoption in near future!

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Reposted by Mike Morrison

David L. Stern @gallseeker.bsky.social · Aug 20

I want this now. Everywhere!
It didn't used to be so necessary, when each paper reported ~1 result. But now a single paper can include many results, sometimes of variable robustness.
So, we should either return to ~1 result/paper, or cite individual results/figures.

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Mike Morrison @mikemorrison.bsky.social · Aug 20

It is really surreal how hard most scientific publishing sites fight to prevent you from downloading even a single graph.

Figure embeds with authorship chains can't happen soon enough.
youtu.be/A2JpI-5NIsc?...

The future of academic citations: Embeds

YouTube video by Mike Morrison

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