How to write compelling impact stories without overclaiming

Your impact story should make your research shine, not make your stakeholders wince.

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One word is often a red flag in impact stories: “significant”. In statistics, it has a precise meaning. In impact stories, it’s often used to mean “big” or “important”. A non-expert reader can’t always tell which sense is intended. The result is a word that seems impressive at first glance but introduces ambiguity. Significant how? To whom? Compared to what?

It’s a red flag because it can be a sign of a bigger problem: that the writer is describing impact from the research organisation’s perspective, without checking whether the people actually using the research have the same perspective.

The two extremes: Hedgers and escalators

When we edit impact stories, we find the language tends to fall into one of two camps.

There are the hedgers. Nervous about overstating the case, they understate it. They couch everything in qualifiers until it reads like a disclaimer: “This may have contributed to potential improvements in some aspects of…”

Then there are the escalators. “Contributed to” might become “caused”. “We shared our findings with council” becomes “council accepted our recommendations”. Nobody intends to exaggerate, but language can creep when documents are reviewed by multiple people who want to acknowledge their team members’ hard mahi, or by comms staff well-practised at polishing their organisation’s public image.

Both camps undermine credibility – the hedgers by watering down a story until its barely lukewarm, the escalators by coming in so hot the story stops passing the sniff test.

Useful, credible impact stories sit in the Goldilocks zone between these two approaches.

Ground-truth your impact claims

The easiest way to find the Goldilocks zone is to send your draft impact story to a research user, implementing organisation, or collaborating stakeholder, and ask them to check it. Not just a summary of what you plan to write – the actual draft, so they can see exactly how you’ve described the impact and managed its attribution, and flag anything that doesn’t match their experience.

You might hear back, “Well actually, for us this bit wasn’t quite like that”. And that’s what you want.

Ground-truthing your impact story does two things. First, it catches overclaiming before it undermines your credibility. If you’ve written that an industry stakeholder “adopted your framework” and the stakeholder would describe it as “drew on several sources including your research”, it’s better to find that out before you publish and your leader gets an awkward phone call.

Second, and this is the good bit you might not expect, it can surface better evidence than you already had. The end user might tell you about outcomes you didn’t know about, or describe the impact in more concrete terms than you would have dared to claim yourself. When a stakeholder quantifies your impact for you, it’s far more credible.

Getting the confidence right

Even with ground-truthing, it’s important to match your word choice to your evidence. Impact stories need to be precise. A few things to watch for:

• “Led to” is not a synonym for “contributed to”.
• “Significant implications”, “far-reaching benefits” and other vague word combinations don’t tell the reader anything. Using these filler words might indicate you need more specific information.
• Be wary of false precision (“a 62% reduction”); the controlled research study might have found this accurately, but real-world impact is usually more general (so write “over half” or “around two-thirds”).
• “Breakthrough”, “ground-breaking”, “pivotal”, “transformative”, “cutting-edge” – these words can flag AI writing assistance and are almost always overstatements. They’re also highly subjective, and people may hold differing views on whether they accurately describe a result. They’re best in direct quotes or from a media source.

Example: Before and after ground-truthing

Here’s what this might look like in practice.

Before ground-truthing:

The research is being used by regional councils to develop freshwater policy, with councils adopting the tool to identify mitigation strategies and land use change required to improve water quality.

After ground-truthing:

Scientists from Waikato, Horizons, Otago and Gisborne regional councils co-developed and beta-tested the tool. Several councils have since approached the project team to discuss customising it for their local datasets and issues, and it is being further developed for Waikato Regional Council and Gisborne District Council.

The first version makes a clean, confident claim – but it’s too broad and overstated the situation. The second version is messier, but more specific about the stage adoption is at.

Precision is persuasive

This might sound like we’re saying, “Be more modest”. Nope. We’re saying, “Be accurate”.

A specific, verified claim is always better than a grand, vague one. “Three regional councils are now customising the tool for their local datasets” is more compelling than “the tool has the potential to transform freshwater management nationally.” The former is a fact; the latter, a hope.

Funders and policymakers have especially well-tuned radars for overclaiming. Being precise about every claim in your story helps it stand up to their scrutiny. When they trust the precision of your language, they trust the substance of your impact.

This is the second in a series of three articles about writing more effective impact stories. Earlier: Why the 5Ws (who, what, when, where, why) are a good starting place for any impact story. Next: why including real voices from the people who experienced your research might give you powerful evidence, and how to get those quotes even if you’ve never interviewed anyone before.