Communicating Technical Work

Estimated time: 4 hours

Technical work is only useful if you can communicate it clearly. In this activity, you will study two complementary aspects of technical communication: presenting ideas effectively and writing technical documents that are clear, focused, and valuable to the reader.

After completing this activity, you should be able to:

• apply basic principles of effective communication to technical presentations;
• apply basic principles of effective writing to technical documents;
• create practical checklists you can reuse when preparing future presentations and written work.

How to Speak — 2 hours

Watch How to Speak and take notes.

As you watch, turn the main principles into a practical checklist that you can reuse whenever you prepare a presentation.

For example, at 31:47 the speaker discusses the “too-heavy crime”: slides with too little white space, too few visuals, and too much text.

Turn principles like this into concrete checklist items. Use the checklist both:

1. while designing your presentation, as a reminder of what to include or avoid;
2. after finishing it, as a final quality check.

Goal: Build a reusable set of principles for communicating technical ideas clearly and effectively in presentations.

The Craft of Writing Effectively — 2 hours

Watch The Craft of Writing Effectively and take notes.

Again, turn the main principles into a practical checklist that you can reuse whenever you write a technical document.

For example, at 13:45 the speaker explains that writing should be clear, organised, and persuasive, but that none of this matters if the content is not valuable to the reader.

A useful checklist item could therefore be:

Is this valuable to the reader?

Ask yourself this question while planning, while writing, and after finishing the document.

Goal: Build a reusable set of principles for writing technical documents that are clear, organised, persuasive, and useful to the reader.