Points of view: Storytelling

Figures and writing are similar processes that benefit equally from clarity, precision and restraint1. Just as writing is made more compelling by a strong narrative, this principle also applies to the accompanying figures.

Stories have the capacity to delight and surprise and to spark creativity by making meaningful connections between data and the ideas, interests and lives of your readers. Science is “full of vexing questions, conflict, dead ends, insights and the occasional thrilling leap” and, as such, is “a story well told”2. At the Story Collider (http://www.storycollider.org/), this approach to science reporting is exemplified by compelling narratives.

Martin Krzywinski and Alberto Cairo

Fonte:  Nature/Methods