Spatial Balancing: Harnessing Spatial Reasoning to Balance Scientific Exposition and Narrative Engagement in LLM-assisted Science Communication Writing
For science communicators, this work provides a structured tool to balance rigor and engagement, though the study is small and the novelty is incremental.
The paper addresses the challenge of balancing scientific exposition and narrative engagement in science communication. It introduces SpatialBalancing, a co-writing system that uses spatial reasoning to help writers iteratively revise text, and shows in a within-subjects study (N=16) that it enhances metacognitive reflection, flexibility, and creative exploration.
Balancing scientific exposition and narrative engagement is a central challenge in science communication. To examine how to achieve balance, we conducted a formative study with four science communicators and a literature review of science communication practices, focusing on their workflows and strategies. These insights revealed how creators iteratively shift between exposition and engagement but often lack structured support. Building on this, we developed SpatialBalancing, a co-writing system that connects human spatial reasoning with the linguistic intelligence of large language models. The system visualizes revision trade-offs in a dual-axis space, where users select strategy-based labels to generate, compare, and refine versions during the revision process. This spatial externalization transforms revision into spatial navigation, enabling intentional iterations that balance scientific rigor with narrative appeal. In a within-subjects study (N=16), SpatialBalancing enhanced metacognitive reflection, flexibility, and creative exploration, demonstrating how coupling spatial reasoning with linguistic generation fosters monitoring in iterative science communication writing.