Communicating¶

Syllabus mapping

Working Scientifically outcome — Communicating. Covers using accurate scientific language and correct notation, selecting an appropriate form (text, diagram, graph, equation) for what's being communicated, writing for the intended audience, and referencing sources appropriately.

Exact NESA outcome code TODO — confirm against the official syllabus PDF (Resources) before treating any wording on this page as verbatim NESA text.

You need to know: correct physics isn't the same as a good mark — a right answer written unclearly, in the wrong notation, or without showing the reasoning behind it loses marks just as surely as a wrong one does.

Core¶

Correct terminology and notation¶

Use the exact term the syllabus and data sheet use, not a casual substitute — "velocity" and "speed" are not interchangeable (see Quantities of Motion), and neither are "mass" and "weight." Match the data sheet's own notation, too — subscript av for average, not "avg"; \(\vec{v}\) or bold for a vector when direction matters. This isn't pedantry: a marker reading "the speed increased by 5 m/s north" has to guess whether you mean speed or velocity, and in physics that guess changes the physics.

Choosing the right mode for the content¶

Some information communicates far better as a diagram, graph, or equation than as a paragraph — and vice versa:

A labelled diagram communicates spatial relationships (a free-body diagram, a ray diagram, a circuit) faster and less ambiguously than describing them in words.
A graph communicates a trend or relationship (see Representing Data) — "the results increased roughly proportionally with length" is instantly clearer as a straight line than as a sentence.
Equations communicate an exact relationship between quantities — use one when the relationship itself is what you're demonstrating, not just the final number.
Prose communicates reasoning, cause-and-effect, and evaluation — the why, which a diagram or equation alone can't carry.

A strong extended response usually uses more than one of these together — text that explains, backed by a diagram or graph that shows.

Writing for the audience and the command verb¶

The same physics content needs a different level of detail depending on what's actually being asked. A 2-mark "Identify" question wants a short, direct answer; NESA's 20–25 mark Section II includes items worth 7–9 marks (see project.md Section 0) that expect a genuinely extended, structured response — reasoning built up logically, not a list of disconnected facts. Matching depth to the command verb (see the command verb glossary) is itself a communication skill: a beautifully written paragraph answering "Describe" when the question said "Evaluate" still loses marks, because it hasn't communicated a judgement, only a description.

Worked example — before and after

Question: "Explain why a satellite in a stable circular orbit does not require a constant forward thrust to maintain its speed."

Weak answer: "There is no friction in space so it keeps going."

Stronger answer: "In the absence of air resistance, no force acts to slow the satellite down along its direction of motion. Gravity provides a centripetal force, directed toward the centre of the orbit — perpendicular to the satellite's velocity at every point — which continuously changes its direction without doing work on it or changing its speed. Since no unbalanced force acts along the direction of travel, the satellite requires no thrust to maintain a constant speed, by Newton's First Law."

The stronger answer uses correct terminology (centripetal, perpendicular, unbalanced force), names the specific law being applied, and explains the mechanism — not just the correct conclusion. The weak answer reaches a true statement (no friction) but doesn't demonstrate understanding of what's actually keeping the satellite moving.

Referencing sources¶

Any claim, data set, image, or idea that isn't your own original work or a well-known formula needs to be acknowledged — in a depth study, a prac write-up drawing on background research, or anywhere you've used someone else's data or explanation. A reference needs enough information that someone else could find the same source: author/organisation, title, publication or website name, year, and the URL if it's online. Referencing isn't just about avoiding plagiarism — it's what lets a reader independently verify a claim, which is a core part of how science actually works.

Advanced

Integrating multiple Working Scientifically skills into one coherent extended response. A genuinely strong answer to a large-mark question doesn't address questioning, planning, processing, and communicating as separate boxes to tick — it moves between them fluidly: stating a claim, backing it with data or a calculation, addressing a limitation, and drawing a conclusion, all in service of one continuous argument. This is exactly what separates a Band 5 extended response (correct content, but presented as a list of separate points) from a Band 6 one (the same content, structured as a single connected argument) — worth deliberately practising as its own skill, since it's independent of how well you know the underlying physics.

Extension

Beyond the Physics 11–12 syllabus — won't appear in the HSC, included for interest / depth study inspiration.

📎 Depth study idea

A depth study doesn't have to be a traditional written report — NESA explicitly allows non-traditional formats, and translating a technical finding for a general audience (a short documentary-style video, a podcast episode, a public-facing article or website) is a genuinely different, valuable communication skill from writing for an examiner. Science communication to a non-specialist audience requires keeping the science accurate while stripping out jargon and rebuilding the explanation around analogies and everyday context — losing precision here is a real risk, and doing it well (accurate and accessible) is harder than it looks. Worth considering as a depth study product if you're more drawn to communicating science broadly than to a conventional written investigation.

Video/visual resources¶

🎥 Khan Academy — TODO: source a scientific writing/communication explainer. Nice-to-have — the before/after worked example above already demonstrates the core skill; a video would mainly help with referencing conventions specifically, which is the least-covered part of this page.
🎥 Physics High — TODO: unlikely to have generic scientific-communication content — more realistic to skip this line for this page.

Check yourself¶

Rewrite this answer to use correct terminology: "The ball goes faster and faster because gravity pulls it down more the further it falls."

Answer

E.g. "The ball's speed increases at a constant rate because it experiences a constant downward acceleration due to gravity (\(g = 9.8\ \text{m s}^{-2}\)) — gravity does not increase with falling distance over this scale; the ball simply keeps accelerating for as long as it falls." This corrects the physics (gravity's strength doesn't increase as something falls) while also using "acceleration" precisely instead of the vaguer "faster and faster."
A student answers a "Compare" question by writing two separate paragraphs, one describing each thing being compared, with no direct comparison between them. Explain what's missing.

Answer

"Compare" specifically asks for similarities and differences to be identified directly against each other (see the command verb glossary) — two separate descriptions, however accurate, don't do this. The answer needs sentences that explicitly connect the two: "unlike X, Y does..." or "both X and Y share...", not two isolated accounts placed one after another.
You used a graph from a NESA-published past paper as background research in a depth study. Explain what information your reference for it should include.

Answer

Enough for someone else to locate the exact same source: NESA (the organisation/author), the specific document title (e.g. the exam paper's year and subject), the publisher/website (NESA's own site), the year of publication, and the URL if accessed online — matching the general referencing principle on this page, not a specific mandated citation style unless your school specifies one.