Given Hapunda

178 to the audience. To some extent, it involves some level of engagement with the audience, i.e., the audience should be able to ask questions or communicate with your organisation about anything related to your results (Zimmerman, 2007). Communicating Research Results to Various Stakeholders. In order to have the greatest impact, it is crucial that communication of results is effective and efficient. To achieve this it is important to: 1. Know your audience: Who do you want to receive the results of your study? Why have you chosen this audience? What message do you want your audience to take away from your results? What action do you want your audience to take once they have received the information. Answers to these questions are very important as they will determine what information to present, the depth of information to be presented and the mode of presentation. It is important that communication takes different forms so as to cater for different audiences as what might work for one audience may not necessarily work for another. Communication of results to policy makers, may not be an effective way to communicate the results to community members such as parents and teachers. The different audiences that may be considered will differ depending on the research and its objectives. However, audiences may typically include various stakeholders such as Government policy makers, the research community, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), community members and many others . 2. Know your message: What is the most important message you want your audience to know? This message should be very clear to you before you begin to prepare the presentation. The most important messages should be presented at the beginning. The information should be presented in a logical and transparent manner. It should be organised, with headings, sub-headings and numbering where necessary. The manner of presentation should clearly show the development of various themes in your presentation (Jones, 2011). “ Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.” David McCullough Focus Box 4: Choosing Stakeholders If your evaluation is focused on HIV prevalence rates in Lusaka, you would consider the various stakeholders in the field of health. These could include the Ministry of Health (policy makers), medical practitioners like doctors and nurses, community health workers, NGOs conducting work in the health sector, researchers and funding agencies.