Trainings and Workshops

Practical training. Expert guidance. Skills that last.

The Open Notebook offers interactive, hands-on trainings for journalists, editors, newsroom teams, scientists, and other science communicators.

Led by experienced science journalists and editors, our workshops draw on more than 15 years of expertise in the craft of science writing. Every training is grounded in real-world examples and designed around active learning—combining discussion, practical exercises, expert feedback, and resources participants can continue using long after the session ends.

Trainings can be offered virtually or in person, as standalone workshops or multi-session programs, and are customized to meet the needs, experience, and goals of each group.

We partner with newsrooms, journalism organizations, educational institutions, scientific societies, and philanthropies that offer professional development programs for journalists and editors, science communicators, and scientists.

Inquire about a training for journalists or scientists, and read more below about our training options.

"As with everything TON, these workshops are so welcoming and inclusive, and the content is relevant to people with a wide range of experience. I really liked the interactive format too."

"The balance of direct instruction, individual work time, and partnered/group discussions was perfect. I am excited to bring fresh ideas and resources from the workshop back to my team."

"Thank you! I love what you all are doing, and the way this training was framed felt incredibly welcoming to all levels."

"Links to super-helpful resources; warm, personable hosts; tailoring examples and discussion to a diverse audience. There was so much in here to love!"

The Open Notebook’s Approach

Expert-led: Our experienced science journalists and editors make complex material accessible and compelling.

Hands-on: Every workshop puts learning into practice. Participants analyze real examples, practice new approaches, work through challenges, and receive expert guidance and feedback.

Customized: We tailor trainings to the people in the room, from newsroom teams, freelance journalists, and students to researchers, universities, and scientific organizations.

Built for Lasting Impact: Participants leave each workshop with practical tools they can return to in their daily work, including templates, checklists, interactive guides, annotated stories, and curated TON resources, so learning can continue well beyond one workshop.

Explore Our Trainings

Trainings for Journalists & Newsrooms

Every story is a science story.

Journalists on every beat are increasingly called on to interpret scientific evidence, data, and expertise—often without specialized training. From health and the environment to housing, education, transportation, and public safety, the ability to vet claims, interview experts, and communicate complex information is essential to strong reporting that holds power to account.

The Open Notebook’s customizable trainings take the intimidation out of bringing scientific evidence into stories, helping journalists and editors find and evaluate evidence, identify credible expert sources, navigate uncertainty and competing claims, and bring scientific context into stories accurately, clearly, and with nuance.

Our workshops serve journalists at every level of experience, from students to seasoned reporters, and on every beat, from local and general-assignment journalists to specialized science writers and editors seeking to deepen their craft. Trainings can be tailored to participants’ experience, beats, newsroom priorities, and professional development goals.

Our training programs help journalists build these skills and put them into practice. We use real-world examples, hands-on exercises, discussion, and expert feedback to help journalists produce rigorous reporting that better serves their communities.

Training Modules

The modules below are highly flexible. They can be offered as standalone workshops or combined into a multi-session training program. We work with partners to select and customize the topics most relevant to their needs.

Bringing Scientific Evidence into Any Beat

This immersive training helps local, general-assignment, and beat reporters confidently identify and incorporate scientific evidence into their coverage.

Through hands-on exercises and real-world examples, participants develop practical skills for:

Finding and reading scientific research
Understanding how research is conducted, funded, and published
Finding and interviewing credible experts
Evaluating evidence and competing claims
Spotting pseudoscience, hype, and misinformation
Reporting on risk, uncertainty, and controversy
Identifying the science underlying policy and community issues
Bringing scientific context into stories on any beat

Participants leave with practical resources they can immediately apply to their reporting.

Science Reporting Navigator: Guided Training

The Open Notebook’s Science Reporting Navigator is an interactive, on-demand tool, developed in partnership with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, that helps journalists find, evaluate, and incorporate scientific evidence into stories on any beat, even on deadline.

In this hands-on workshop, reporters and editors learn how to use the Navigator to tackle real reporting situations, from breaking news and new research to policy debates and ongoing community issues.

Participants explore practical approaches to:

Finding and accessing scientific research
Accessing and evaluating scientific papers
Finding and interviewing expert sources
Deciphering statistics
Evaluating scientific claims and spotting pseudoscience
Reporting on controversial or politicized science
Finding the science dimensions in any story

The Navigator also provides ready-to-use resources—including templates for reaching expert sources, interview question guides, and scenario-based learning paths—that journalists can continue using long after the training ends.

Job Simulation: Reporting on Research

This experiential training puts participants in the role of a science journalist reporting on research. Through a realistic job simulation, participants practice assessing whether a study is newsworthy, identifying compelling story angles, and preparing for interviews that uncover context, significance, and limitations. They learn to evaluate the strength of the evidence, ask critical questions, and translate complex findings into engaging stories for general audiences.

The goal is to give participants a practical framework for approaching research with the rigor, curiosity, and critical thinking of an experienced science journalist.

Core Science Journalism Skills

Our flexible suite of craft-focused workshops helps reporters and editors strengthen the skills behind strong evidence-based journalism.

Topics can include:

Honing sharp angles and strong pitches. We’ll dial in on how to clarify your ideas, craft solid reporting plans, and connect meaningfully with editors to produce a successful story.
Structuring stories for clarity and impact. Regardless of what kinds of stories you cover, learn practical and repeatable tools to establish context, find the right flow, and leave audiences with meaningful takeaways.
Reporting on individual studies. For new science reporters or those who don’t normally cover science, getting comfortable with the study story will unlock your capacity to communicate science clearly and dive into the stories behind new research.
Making sense of statistics. In this workshop, you’ll learn the basics of data journalism, finding the story behind the numbers and sharing what a dataset means with audiences.
Developing or deepening a science beat. Whether you hope to work with patient sources for health stories or take steps into field reporting as an environmental journalist, we’ll help you understand the fundamentals of a given scientific beat and empower you to cover it confidently.

Sessions can be combined or customized around the needs and experience of participants.

The Craft of Editing

Strong journalism depends on strong editing—but journalists have few opportunities to learn how to edit complex, evidence-rich stories. To help fill this critical gap, our customizable, hands-on training helps working and aspiring editors develop stronger editorial instincts and gives writers practical strategies for becoming better self-editors. Through proven frameworks, real-world examples, exercises, and expert guidance, participants learn how to diagnose what a story needs and make purposeful editorial decisions at every stage of the process.

Core topics may include:

Developing the skills and mindset of an effective editor
Sharpening story ideas and building stronger reporting plans
Prioritizing the editing and self-editing process
Using The Open Notebook’s Editing Forensics™ approach to evaluate stories at the conceptual, structural, and stylistic levels
Reverse-outlining drafts and published stories to examine structure, identify gaps, and strengthen focus and flow
Giving clear, constructive feedback and building collaborative editor-writer relationships

Build a Training Around Your Needs

Every newsroom and organization is different. Trainings can be offered virtually or in person, for small cohorts or larger groups, and as standalone workshops or multi-session programs.

Programs can also include:

Small-group coaching or breakout sessions
Follow-up virtual office hours
Beat-specific resource collections
Annotated sample stories
Consultations with newsroom leadership

Not sure which training is right for your team? Tell us your budget and goals and we’ll work with you to design an approach that fits.

Trainings for Scientists & Science Communicators

Turn complex research into clear, compelling stories for any audience.

The work scientists do has never been more central to public life—and the ability to communicate that work well has never been more important. Whether they’re writing for the public, teaching students, preparing grant materials, presenting to policymakers, collaborating with journalists, or engaging with communities, researchers and institutional communicators benefit from strong communication skills.

The Open Notebook brings the expertise of experienced science journalists and editors directly to researchers through hands-on training in clear, engaging science communication.

Designed for groups from universities, research institutions, scientific societies, funders, and other organizations, our workshops help scientists and institutional science communicators tell the stories in their research, explain complexity and uncertainty, connect with different audiences, and communicate their work with greater confidence and impact.

Training Modules

Each module can be delivered as a standalone session or combined into a multi-session program. Workshops can be offered virtually or in person, and we tailor each one to the goals, expertise level, and disciplinary background of our partners.

Working with Journalists

This module demystifies how science journalism works and offers practical guidance for building productive relationships with reporters. Participants learn how to share tips and story ideas, collaborate effectively with their institution’s communications staff, and navigate the realities of reporters’ deadlines and professional boundaries. We cover how to prepare for interviews, communicate clearly without jargon, use metaphors to illuminate key concepts, and highlight science as an iterative, self-correcting process. The session equips researchers to approach media interactions with confidence and to support accurate, trustworthy reporting.

Finding Compelling Stories in Your Research

Learn how to identify the story potential in your own work. This module helps participants surface the questions, tensions, and narrative threads hidden inside everyday research moments. We also explore four foundational qualities that make a story worth telling: It should be intriguing, timely, well supported by evidence, and original. Through guided exercises, participants practice applying these principles to shape research ideas into strong, engaging story concepts for a wide range of audiences.

Tuning Your Story for Different Audiences

Effective science communication starts with understanding what your audience needs from you. This module offers a practical framework for shaping stories around the decisions or actions a particular group must make. Participants learn to tailor emphasis, tone, and detail for different audiences: policymakers who need concise, system-level insights; funders who look for human stakes and tangible outcomes; patient communities who value clarity, empathy, and empowerment; and general audiences who connect with approachable, curiosity-driven narratives. The focus is on giving each audience what is most relevant and meaningful to them.

Communicating Science as a Human Narrative

Some of the most memorable science stories don’t start with data—they start with people. This workshop explores how to uncover the human arc woven through the research process: the questions that spark a scientist’s curiosity, the challenges that shape the work, the moments of insight that move a project forward, and the emotions that accompany the process of discovery. Participants learn how to draw on these natural storytelling elements to craft narratives that invite audiences into the lived experience of science while remaining accurate and grounded.

Communicating Responsibly about Uncertainty and Risk

Science is an incremental, deeply human process—not a fixed set of facts. Yet public conversations often treat uncertainty as weakness rather than what it truly is: a core feature of how science works. This session offers practical strategies for avoiding hype, explaining what’s known and what isn’t, and communicating how strong the evidence is and how findings may evolve. We’ll also explore how uncertainty shapes our ability to assess risk—what evidence suggests about potential harms or benefits and how confident we can be in those estimates. We’ll also consider how centering scientists as real people who—like everyone else—make mistakes and change their minds can help audiences better understand the research process. By normalizing uncertainty and communicating it clearly, scientists can foster trust and avoid overstating what the evidence supports.

Job Simulation: Reporting on Research

This experiential learning opportunity introduces participants to the core practices of science journalism. In this job-simulation–based training, participants learn how reporters assess which studies are newsworthy, identify promising story angles, and prepare for interviews that surface context, significance, and limitations. They practice evaluating the strength of the evidence and shaping it into clear, accurate, and engaging narratives for general audiences. The goal is to help scientists see their own work—and others’—through a journalist’s lens and to strengthen their ability to communicate research clearly.

A Training Designed around Your Goals

No two organizations have exactly the same needs. We work with partners to develop workshops and programs around their audiences, priorities, and goals.

Interested in bringing The Open Notebook to your organization?

"I've increasingly been charged with writing research stories in my role at a university. This course showed me where I'm on the right track, reminded me what I know about skillful storytelling, and added some techniques to my toolkit."

"The workshop on developmental editing was pure gold. I’ve been a fairly intuitive editor and loved the methods and theory presented. It took my game to the next level."

"Practical tips, useful examples, extremely easy to follow; felt like getting insider information I've always wondered about."

"I loved it. I'd do another TON course in a heartbeat."

Training Partners

We’re proud to have delivered trainings and workshops in partnership with organizations including: