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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: IEEE Press Series on Technology Management, Innovation, and Leadership
- Sprache: Englisch
Persuasive Communication for Science and Technology Leaders Explore this insightful guide to the development of persuasive leadership skills perfect for students and managers in technical fields Many technical managers receive little or no training in the persuasive arts. Though technically skilled, they often lack the ability to engage effectively with an audiences outside their field. Persuasive Communication for Science and Technology Leaders: Writing and Speaking with Confidence delivers a thorough treatment of how to connect with audiences whose knowledge, values, personal experiences, ethnic background, gender, and worldview may differ from their own. Written in a highly readable and entertaining style, this book goes beyond the scope of a standard textbook on persuasive communication. Its practical lessons illustrate the techniques of effective scientific and technical writing while emphasizing values-based leadership for a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world, a theme that seems particularly pertinent during these times of multiple crises, misinformation campaigns, and science denial. The distinguished speaker and author explores the broader importance of language and explains various techniques for expanding your expressive range and your professional influence. He will also teach you methods for conveying information clearly and precisely as well as in ways that inspire and leave a lasting impression. You will also benefit from: * A thorough introduction to knowing and connecting with your audience, using voice, tone, and point of view for results, and engaging your reader with compelling openings * An exploration of explaining complex technologies clearly, succeeding with challenging writing assignments, and applying a variety of persuasive strategies for agile responses to a rapidly changing world * An examination of speaking effectively while thinking on your feet, including how to create a safety net and how to recover from momentary lapses * Easy-to-remember guidance on avoiding common language errors that might undermine your credibility or, worse yet, make people stop listening to you Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students in scientific and technical fields such as engineering, geology, botany, climatology, and epidemiology, Persuasive Communication for Science and Technology Leaders: Writing and Speaking with Confidence will earn a place in the libraries of technical managers and leaders who seek to better connect with their audiences.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HOW THIS BOOK DIFFERS FROM OTHER COMMUNICATION GUIDES
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL
ALSO BY STEPHEN WILBERS
WELCOME
Introduction
Who can benefit from this book
How this book differs from other textbooks & communication guides
How this book evolved from my writing & teaching
How to read this book using the SQ4R method – Skim, Question, Read, Recite, Review, Reflect – to remember and apply what you've read
How this book is organized
Questions to ask yourself as you read this book
PART ONE: Writing
CHAPTER 1: Explaining Complex Technologies Clearly
Chapter 1 Summary
Chapter 1: Explaining Complex Technologies Clearly
Writing in stages
Communicating internationally without ambiguity
Connecting your thoughts with sentence & paragraph structure
Emphasizing key points with sentence variety
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: How Charles the Great changed Latin to our benefit today
Get Out of Jail Free:
e.g.
for
i.e.
CHAPTER 2: Breathing Life into Scientific & Technical Writing
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 2: Breathing Life into Scientific & Technical Writing
Supporting your explanations with detail
Animating your sentences & descriptions with verbs
Working with verbs, noun stacks, & sentence variety
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: Nominalize your verbs to inflict pain on your reader
Get Out of Jail Free:
It
'
s
for
its
CHAPTER 3: Expanding Your Expressive Range
Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3: Expanding Your Expressive Range
Using your first person subjective voice
Going beyond “Plain English” to more varied expression
Expanding your vocabulary to convey nuance, beauty, & complexity
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: American poet runs afoul of Plain English guidelines
Get Out of Jail Free:
Principle
for
principal
CHAPTER 4: Connecting with a Wider Audience
Chapters 1–3 Review
Chapter 4 Summary
Getting your reader's attention
Structuring your articles, blogs, messages, texts, & tweets
Communicating correctly
Communicating inclusively
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: SlumberWrite software guaranteed to produce soporific writing
Get Out of Jail Free:
Complementary
for
complimentary
PART TWO: Speaking
CHAPTER 5: Mastering the Physical & Behavioral Skills of Public Speaking
Chapter 5 Summary
Chapter 5: Mastering the Physical & Behavioral Skills of Public Speaking
Connecting with your posture, dress, & appearance
Connecting with your eyes
Connecting with your voice
Connecting with your gestures, facial expressions, & movement
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: Sailing, writing, & speaking
Get Out of Jail Free:
There's
for
there're
& subject‐verb nonagreement
CHAPTER 6: Feeling & Projecting Confidence
Chapter 6 Summary
Chapter 6: Feeling & Projecting Confidence
Feeling confident
Projecting confidence
Recovering from mental lapses & technical glitches
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: Speaking your mind & breaking the rules like Jesse Ventura
Get Out of Jail Free:
Myself
for
I, Me,
and
Bobby
McGee
CHAPTER 7: Connecting with Content, Conviction, & Humor
Chapter 7 Summary
Chapter 7: Connecting with Content, Conviction, & Humor
Opening, holding, & closing well
Playing your part convincingly
Making it fun by having fun
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: Papa says to maintain parallel structure
Get Out of Jail Free: Nonparallel structure
CHAPTER 8: Practicing, Delivering, & Evaluating Your Presentation
Chapter 5–7 Review
Chapter 8 Summary
Chapter 8: Practicing, Delivering, & Evaluating Your Presentation
Creating muscle memory by practicing
Handling difficult questions & inappropriate questioners
Evaluating presentations with a score sheet
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun: Even Eliza Doolittle trips over the rules of English grammar
Get Out of Jail Free:
Who
or
whom
do you trust?
Epilogue
APPENDIX A: Words Every Educated Person Should Know
APPENDIX B: Sixteen Common Language Errors
Remember the eight language errors that got you out of jail
Avoid eight additional common language errors
APPENDIX C: Key Physical & Behavioral Skills of Public Speaking
APPENDIX D: Key Themes & Strategies
Themes & highlights from Chapter Summaries
APPENDIX E: Works Cited, Recommended Reading, & Style Guides
Works cited
Recommended reading
Style guides
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HOW THIS BOOK DIFFERS FROM OTHER COMMUNICATION GUIDES
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL
ALSO BY STEPHEN WILBERS
WELCOME
Begin Reading
Epilogue
APPENDIX A: Words Every Educated Person Should Know
APPENDIX B: Sixteen Common Language Errors
APPENDIX C: Key Physical & Behavioral Skills of Public Speaking
APPENDIX D: Key Themes & Strategies
APPENDIX E: Works Cited, Recommended Reading, & Style Guides
Index
End User License Agreement
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IEEE Press
445 Hoes Lane Piscataway, NJ 08854
IEEE Press Editorial Board
Sarah Spurgeon,
Editor in Chief
Jón Atli Benediktsson
Andreas Molisch
Diomidis Spinellis
Anjan Bose
Saeid Nahavandi
Ahmet Murat Tekalp
Adam Drobot
Jeffrey Reed
Peter (Yong) Lia
Thomas Robertazzi
A Note from the Series Editor
Welcome to the Wiley–IEEE Press Series on Technology Management, Innovation, and Leadership!
The IEEE Press imprint of John Wiley & Sons is well known for its books on technical and engineering topics. This new series extends the reach of the imprint, from engineering and scientific developments to innovation and business models, policy and regulation, and ultimately to societal impact. For those who are seeking to make a positive difference for themselves, their organization, and the world, technology management, innovation, and leadership are essential skills to home.
The world today is increasingly technological in many ways. Yet, while scientific and technical breakthroughs remain important, it's connecting the dots from invention to innovation to the betterment of humanity and our ecosphere that has become increasingly critical. Whether it's climate change or water management or space exploration or global healthcare, a technological breakthrough is just the first step. Further requirements can include prototyping and validation, system or ecosystem integration, intellectual property protection, supply/value chain set‐up, manufacturing capacity, regulatory and certification compliance, market studies, distribution channels, cost estimation and revenue projection, environmental sustainability assessment, and more. The time, effort, and funding required for realizing real‐world impact dwarf what was expended on the invention. There are no generic answers to the big‐picture questions either, the considerations vary by industry sector, technology area, geography, and other factors.
Volumes in the series will address related topics both in general – e.g. frameworks that can be applied across many industry sectors – and in the context of one or more application domains. Examples of the latter include transportation and energy, smart cities and infrastructure, and biomedicine and healthcare. The series scope also covers the role of government and policy, particularly in an international technological context.
With 30 years of corporate experience behind me and about five years now in the role of leading a Management of Technology program at a university, I see a broad‐based need for this series that extends across industry, academia, government, and nongovernmental organization. We expect to produce titles that are relevant for researchers, practitioners, educators, and others.
I am honored to be leading this important and timely publication venture.
Tariq Samad
Senior Fellow and Honeywell/W.R. Sweatt Chair in Technology Management
Director of Graduate Studies, M.S. Management of Technology
Technological Leadership Institute | University of Minnesota
PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LEADERS
WRITING AND SPEAKING WITH CONFIDENCE
Stephen Wilbers
IEEE Press Series on Technology Management, Innovation, and Leadership
Copyright © 2023 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per‐copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750‐8400, fax (978) 750‐4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748‐6011, fax (201) 748‐6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data Applied for:Hardback ISBN: 9781119573227
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Blue Planet Studio/Shutterstock
To all great writers, readers, scientists, technicians, and leaders, young and old,
with thanks for making this world a better place.
To Debbie, for her generosity, thoughtfulness, love, and support.
And to my grandchildren, Matilda & Lachlan,
with this poem from my chapbook, This Northern Nonsense:
Why Write?
Why this impulse
to capture truth and beauty
in words?
Above the still water, across
the channel that cuts
between these islands,
the rock rises calmly, giving
way to green moss and mottled
shade as it climbs the hillside
that runs beneath the pine forest.
Maybe we write to create a record,
to help us not forget.
If I weren't sitting here now, at this
moment, notebook before me,
pen in hand, no one would know
how that merganser swam
down this channel, bobbing
her head, a wary eye on the
world, and moments later,
how she returned.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Wilbers is an award‐winning author and former columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has offered writing seminars, workshops, and classes to more than 10,000 scientific, technical, business, legal, academic, and creative writers.
He teaches writing and oral presentation skills in the University of Minnesota's Technological Leadership Institute. He has also taught writing in the Carlson School of Management's M.B.A. Program, the Program in American Studies, and the Program in Creative and Professional Writing. In 1995, he won an Outstanding Faculty Award in Hamline University's Graduate Public Administration Program.
Dr. Wilbers earned his B.A. at Vanderbilt University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Iowa. He spent his junior year abroad in Aix‐en‐Provence, and he was a Visiting Fulbright Fellow at the University of Essex in Colchester, England. He served as board chair of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where he now lives. He and his wife Debbie have two children and two grandchildren.
Please send queries to [email protected].
For answers to common writing‐related questions such as “Does the period go before or after the closing quotation marks,” preface your online search with “wilbers,” as in “wilbers punctuation.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With thanks to Tariq Samad, who as series editor for Wiley-IEEE Press solicited book proposals at a faculty meeting and offered invaluable feedback in the final stages of revising; to my book club members, who encouraged me to make my book fun; to my writers' group members, who offered suggestions on a few early chapters and told me my book was one they might actually want to read; to speech coaches Brian K. Johnson and Donna McCarthy, who taught me so much about oral presentation skills; and to Mary Munter's Guide to Managerial Communication: Effective Business Writing and Speaking and Bert Decker's Communication Skills for Leaders, two books I used for decades as textbooks in my classes. To all, I deeply appreciate your guidance and support.
HOW THIS BOOK DIFFERS FROM OTHER COMMUNICATION GUIDES
This is a beautifully and engagingly written book. Dr. Wilbers' love of language and the craft of writing fully comes out, and I am optimistic that his passion will rub off on many of the readers of the volume. Too many guides to writing are dry and “manual”‐like; this is the opposite – bridging the technical/literary divide, suffused with humor, connecting language use with desired impact on the audience.
– TARIQ SAMAD, IEEE Fellow and Honeywell/W.R. Sweatt Chair at the University of Minnesota's Technological Leadership Institute
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL
Some columns published between 1991 and 2017 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other newspapers and magazines have been incorporated into this book, as well as part of an article published by The College Board Review in its winter 1989–90 issue.
ALSO BY STEPHEN WILBERS
The Iowa Writers' Workshop: Origins, Emergence, and Growth (history)
Writing for Business (collected columns)
Writing by Wilbers (collected columns)
Keys to Great Writing: Mastering the Elements of Composition and Revision (writing instruction)
Mastering the Craft of Writing: How To Write with Clarity, Emphasis, & Style (writing instruction)
This Northern Nonsense: Ernest Oberholtzer and Mallard Island (a chapbook of poems)
A Boundary Waters History: Canoeing Across Time (history)
Canoeing the Boundary Waters Wilderness: A Sawbill Log (memoir)
WELCOME
“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”
– WILLIAMZINSSER, On Writing Well
“The way I've been doing it my entire career is [to] use evidence‐based data. And if you don't know the answer to something, admit it.”
– ANTHONYFAUCI, immunologist and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
“You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”
– Attributed to WINSTONCHURCHILL
This book was written for readers like you who believe in science and technology. It was also written for people who love language – or if not love language at least find it mildly interesting and worthy of exploration. It's for people who recognize its extraordinary power not only to convey information as well as its persuasive potential to change minds and shape our future. Published by John Wiley & Sons in collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, pronounced “Eye‐triple‐E”), this book could adopt IEEE's motto as its own: “Advancing technology for humanity.” Change the word “technology” to “scientific and technical communication” and you have its theme.
The principal (not principle) goal of this book is to help you become a more competent communicator, manager, and leader – perhaps even a great leader – who writes and speaks with confidence. I hope to make your journey fun, but I also intend to challenge you along the way. I will challenge you to make an honest assessment of your motives, ambitions, and values. I will ask you to question your assumptions about persuasive strategy, leadership, power, and race. I will help you identify common language errors such as dangling modifiers and comma splices and nonparallel structure, errors that might undermine your credibility or, worse yet, make people stop listening to you. And I won't just talk about language. I will take you deep into its complexity – as well as its beauty – in a way that will enrich your own life and empower you to improve the lives of others.
You may have been taught that personality is out of bounds for scientific and technical writers. It's true that technological communicators need to communicate their information clearly and objectively. Often, they're not permitted to express themselves in the first person. The expressive range for most technical writers, most of the time, is necessarily narrow. Clarity, precision, and accurate detail are essential. Those qualities are often conveyed with simple, direct sentence structures. But a lab report isn't the same as a commencement address. The vertical marketing team I worked with at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, wanted more than clarity. They also wanted stylistic technique. The technical writers in the Emerging Leaders Group I taught for Ryan Companies in Minneapolis knew that technical writers, like most writers, from attorneys to poets, need to know how to shape their sentences with subordinate clauses, asides, introductory phrases, and trailing elements. Strings of simple sentences – subject, predicate, period; subject, predicate, period – work well for instructional manuals, but they become monotonous elsewhere.
When technical communicators need to get the word out to a wider audience – whether blogging or writing newsletter articles, writing promotional material to customers or persuasive documents to government agencies, policy makers, politicians, and the public – they need a broader expressive range. Technological leaders need to do more than inform. They also need to persuade and inspire.
If you don't believe that scientific and technical writers (as well as historians and novelists writing about technical subjects) can be engaging and entertaining, read Charles Darwin's Origins of Species, Elizabeth Gilbert's Signature of All Things, Hope Jahren's Lab Girl, or Yaa Gyasi's Transcendent Kingdom. They do more than write with precision. They also write with eloquence coupled with the kind of passion for their subjects that is characteristic of dedicated scientists. If you question whether eloquence has a place in scientific and technical communication, read Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell, John McPhee's Basins and Ranges, or Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything, authors who can seemingly take any technical subject and make it interesting and fun, even funny. If you're still not convinced expressive writing matters, check out Oliver Sacks on neurology, Stephen Jay Gould on paleontology, and Stephen Hawking on the cosmos. As a manager and leader, you need to do more than communicate facts and theory clearly. You also need to explain how science and technology affects people's lives.
So there you have it. This is a book about language, communication, leadership, commitment, and character. It's organized into two parts – writing and speaking – but let's begin with a warmup exercise for speaking that will set the stage for communicating and leading. Ready? Here we go.
Assume the ready position. Don't know what the “ready position” is? Let me explain. I'll have you demonstrate.
Stand up. That's it. Nice and straight. Check your posture. Good. Head back, as if a string were lifting the back of your head upward. Weight balanced evenly on both feet (don't hitch your weight to one side and don't sway back and forth to dissipate nervous energy). Hands positioned comfortably above your waist, maybe clasped, maybe not, but not in your pockets (unless you're trying to be folksy and casual). Keep those hands up where we can see them, ready to do their job, which is to emphasize your brilliant thoughts and fascinating insights. And for goodness sake, don't lean on the lectern as though you're too tired to stand up on your own. Now you're in the ready position. You're ready to go.
Now take a deep breath. That's it. Take the deepest breath you've taken so far today. Fill your lungs all the way, deep deep deep, and now exhale. Slowly. Completely. When your lungs are empty and your mind is clear, say these words with me, and then complete this prompt:
“A good communicator is someone who …”
Don't overthink it. Just say the first words that come to mind. Do it off the top of your head (we'll get to the bottom of your heart later).
Good. Now take another deep breath, exhale slowly and complete this phrase: “A good leader is someone who …”
Write down both the prompts and your responses and put them someplace where you can find them, maybe next to your computer, on your refrigerator, or in your cookie jar. We'll return to them in the Epilogue. I want to see how your thinking about communication and leadership has evolved from reading this book.
One last thought before I offer a more traditional introduction.
As you work to become a more persuasive writer and speaker, as well as a more intentional, effective, and inspiring leader, I encourage you to pause along the way to reflect. As Sir David Attenborough, one of our era's great interpreters of scientific fact, says near the end of A Life on Our Planet (a movie he made at 93 as his “witness statement”), “We've come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. But to continue, we require more than intelligence. We require wisdom.” Whether you're a lab technician, an intellectual property rights attorney, or a seasoned writer and speaker, whether you're a precocious seventh grader, a college student, or a digital immigrant traveling on Walt Whitman's worn boot soles through the candlelight of old age, I urge you to take time to think, reflect, and evaluate. Your destination lies beyond information and knowledge. Your ultimate destination is wisdom.
Introduction
“There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to the lab at all!”
–CHIEN‐SHIUNGWU, known as the “Chinese Madame Curie” and the “Queen of Nuclear Research”
“Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
–NICHOLASCARR, Shallow Waters: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
“Language is intrinsically powerful. Language is powerful in itself. Language is sacred.”
–N. SCOTTMOMADAY, a Kiowa short story writer and poet, whose novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
You're reading this book because you're committed to clear and precise scientific and technical communication, effective persuasive strategies, and ethical leadership. Either that or your teacher or boss is making you read it. Either way, I look forward to helping you become the capable, agile, empathetic, values‐based, inspirational communicator you were meant to be.
Communicating with clarity, precision, accuracy, and authority is serious stuff. The process of honing your communication skills, however, need not be dry and boring. Despite the technological communicator's no‐nonsense responsibility to be accurate and clear, learning how to get your message across more effectively need not be like walking 10 miles over rough terrain in shoes two sizes too small. There's no reason you can't enjoy the process of learning how to get people to see things your way, use language that is memorable and even inspirational, and leave the world a better place than you found it. If you can imagine language, grammar, punctuation, style, eloquence, persuasive strategy, character, imagination, leadership, and fun as words that belong in the same sentence, we'll have a great time together.
Who can benefit from this book
This book is intended for engineers, scientists, and technological leaders, as well as technical communicators generally. It will benefit researchers, programmers, financial analysts, lab technicians, report writers, teachers, students, and job seekers. And no matter where you fall on C.P. Snow's cultural divide between the sciences and the humanities, this book will broaden your outlook. Moreover, it will benefit anyone who cares about precise and persuasive language.
If you want to persuade legislators to protect your infrastructure and electrical grid from sabotage, you need to use language they understand. If you want to convince political leaders and the general public that decisive steps are urgently needed to curb the most devastating effects of climate change, you need to use words that motivate and inspire people. If you want to sway the leaders of government and industry to invest in sustainable energy and production, you need more than facts and figures.
If you want to promote policies ensuring that all people have equal access to the benefits of technological change, you need to have a moral compass. To become the leader you want to be, you need a set of guiding values and principles – and foremost among these are honesty, decency, and respect.
Your challenge is not so much to connect with people who are like you and who agree with you, but to connect with people who are unlike you and who are predisposed to oppose you. Unless you win over people whose values, backgrounds, and worldviews differ from yours, your success will be limited. To lead is to do more than make someone do something. To lead is to set an example, to operate from a moral center, to make the world a better place. To lead is to unite and to inspire.
If this is the type of communicator and leader you aspire to be, this book is for you.
How this book differs from other textbooks & communication guides
This book differs from other textbooks and communication guides in at least four important ways:
It's fun to read.
At least I think it is. Addie, my daughter's adorable goldendoodle, looks amused when I read parts of it out loud before she closes her eyes, sighs, and gently drifts off to sleep.
It's genuinely language‐based.
Surprisingly, some communication books are not. They may do a great job delineating approaches, methods, and strategies, but many offer only rudimentary language instruction such as eliminate wordiness or avoid the passive voice. They don't talk about how language actually works. They don't get under the hood. They talk about word choice and organization and maybe paragraph structure, but they don't talk about the importance of word placement or where the natural stress points fall in sentences, paragraphs, and documents. Some books carry on about bad writing these days and how younger people can't write and how they don't know the rules of grammar, but they don't talk in depth about specific, time‐tested stylistic techniques that make words memorable. They talk about organizational techniques and the process of writing, but they don't talk about the patterns and rhythms of language, about what sounds good and what doesn't and why. This book does.
It's experience‐based.
It recognizes your intelligence and your ability to make obvious connections. In contrast to books that belabor the obvious, and unlike some self‐help guides that serve up generalities, anecdotes, and platitudes, this book will help you determine what's working and what's not, in both your writing and your speeches. It will help you build on your strengths and address your weaknesses, making you a better communicator, both in the short term and over time.
It's values‐based.
With its emphasis on respect, honesty, empathy, and decency, this book does more than help you become a more competent, sophisticated, artful, and persuasive communicator. It also invites you to examine the assumptions and values that motivate you. It asks you to commit yourself to becoming a better person.
Though this book offers guidance on common errors and correct grammar, punctuation, and word choice, it is not a style guide or style manual in the tradition of Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, William Strunk and E.B. White's The Elements of Style, Theodore Bernstein's The Careful Writer, William Sabin's The Gregg Reference Manual, Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference, Constance Hale's Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age, Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, The Chicago Manual of Style, The Oxford Style Manual, The Associated Press Stylebook (AP Stylebook), Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA Manual); or for electrical and electronic engineers,IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors, IEEE Citation Guidelines, and ACM Citation Style and Reference Formats; or for civil engineers,Publishing in ASCE Journals: A Guide for Authors; or for mechanical engineers,ASME Journals Digital Submission Tool Guidelines and Information; orfor general engineering, biologists, and scientists,Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers; or for technical communicators, Gerald Alred, Charles Brusaw, and Walter Oliu's Handbook of Technical Writing, an excellent quick‐reference guide. (For an alphabetical listing of standard style guides, see Appendix E: Works Cited, Style Guides, & Recommended Reading.)
While not a traditional style guide, this book will deepen your appreciation for any one and all of these standard references. It might even pique (not peak or peek) your curiosity to the point that you open one and browse through it (though I recommend not doing so just before bedtime – you may find yourself so aroused and stimulated that you have trouble falling asleep, as has happened to me on countless occasions). Whichever style guide is right for you, bear in mind my definition of a serious writer: someone who owns and uses a style manual.
How this book evolved from my writing & teaching
Much of the content in this book was developed from three decades of
Writing columns
on effective business writing for the
Minneapolis Star Tribune
and other publications
Teaching undergraduate and graduate classes
for public affairs managers at Hamline University, for business administrators at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, and for technology managers and leaders at the University of Minnesota's Technological Leadership Institute (formerly the Center for the Development of Technological Leadership)
Offering some 1,500 professional development seminars and conference presentations, along with a few keynote addresses,
to a variety of audiences, including research scientists, lab technicians, engineers, medical device researchers, bankers, fundraising executives, attorneys, public defenders, judges, academic deans, public relations communicators, marketers, and administrative staff with a wide range of organizations, companies, and nonprofits, including the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization, the Minnesota County Highway Engineers Association, the Mayo Clinic, the Mayo Research Fellows Association, the Ryan Companies Emerging Leaders Group, Coca‐Cola Enterprises auditors in Atlanta, the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuting attorneys in Las Vegas, and Google vertical marketers at the Mountain View Googleplex in California; as well as staff members with 3M Corporate Marketing Research Division and Intellectual Property, ADC Telecommunications, Ag Country FCS, Alhambra School District in Phoenix, Allete‐Minnesota Power, Allina, the American Agricultural Editors Association, DePuy Synthes Companies (a division of Johnson & Johnson), Dorsey & Whitney Law Firm, Enterprise Technology, the FBI Crime Lab, Fredrikson & Byron Law Firm, General Mills, Guidant Corporation, Hennepin County Bar Association's Continuing Legal Education, IBM, International Association of Administrative Professionals, Kansas City Association of Legal Administrators, Medtronic, the Metropolitan Airport Commission, the Metropolitan Council, Microsoft Technology Program, the McKnight Foundation, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and the Minneapolis‐St. Paul International Airport (Airport Police); along with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Office of Management and Budgets, Association for Financial Professionals, Association of Government Communicators, and Council on Foundations; as well as the Minnesota Departments of Employee Relations, Health, Human Services, Labor and Industry, Natural Resources, Rural Health and Primary Care, Transportation, Management and Budget; the Minnesota Municipal Clerks Institute, Pollution Control Agency, Public Defender's Office, State Bar Association's Continuing Legal Education, State Retirement System, Supreme Court Continuing Education Program (Annual Conference of Judges); along with Mortenson Company, the National Association for Environmental Management, the National Society of Fundraising Executives (Minnesota Chapter), the Natural Resources Research Institute in Duluth, Thomson Reuters; along with the University of Minnesota's Master of Science in Software Engineering, Materials Research Science and Engineering Center's Summer Research Program, Multicultural Teacher Development Project; as well as Upsher‐Smith Laboratories, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court (District of Minnesota), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – my point being that the principles of effective writing and speaking presented in this book apply to a broad spectrum of communicators.
In addition, this book's content is based on my personal management experience establishing and directing the first campus‐wide academic advising program at the University of Iowa in the late 1970s, directing Student Academic Support Services in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota in the 1980s, studying the British educational administrative system as a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the University of Essex in Colchester, England, in 1985, serving as the associate and acting director of the University of Minnesota's Program in Creative and Professional Writing in the late 1980s, and incorporating my professional consulting business in 1990.
How to read this book using the SQ4R method – Skim, Question, Read, Recite, Review, Reflect – to remember and apply what you've read
You'll learn more – and remember more – if you read this book using the SQ4R method: Skim, Question, Read, Recite, Review, & Reflect.
If you're familiar with the SQ3R method, you may have noticed a fourth R in my version. I added the R for Reflect because I want you to slow down. I want you to take the time to think long and carefully about how the material in this book applies to you and your values and your plans for making the world a better place.
Here's why I'm recommending this approach. In the 25 years I've been teaching managerial communication and in the 50 years I've been teaching writing, I've noticed that my students don't recall details from their reading as well as they used to. Some do, but many don't. I know from class discussions that they're as smart and insightful and skilled as ever. Could it be that they're moving so quickly in our fast‐changing, technology‐driven world that they're not giving their full attention to the task at hand or taking time to think and reflect? Could it be that they're training their minds to function more with agility than recall?
What I want from them – and from you – is deep reading. By that, I mean reading, reflecting, and remembering. What's the point of learning something today and forgetting it tomorrow? I don't want you to be that person on a jet ski zipping over the surface of language that Nicholas Carr describes above. I want you to go deep to the ocean depths. I want you to be that person who takes time to appreciate the marvels of science and technology, to reflect on the wonders and beauty of the English language, and to learn the subtleties of persuasive strategies. The multiple‐exposure SQ4R method will help you do those things.
Here's how SQ4R works:
(S)kim:
Take a quick look to see what it's all about.
(Q)uestion:
Ask yourself what seems interesting or relevant or what you hope to learn.
(R)ead:
Read not only with your entire, undistracted mind, but also your heart and soul.
(R)ecite:
Look away from the text and see how many specific points, facts, and concepts you can recall.
(R)eview:
See what you have retained and what you may have missed.
(R)eflect:
Ask yourself if you agree or disagree with what you've read. What information and concepts seem most relevant to your professional and personal life?
So don't begin by reading this book. Begin by skimming it. Get a feeling for the whole, paying particular attention to the chapter and section headings in the Table of Contents and the Chapter Previews. Then take a quick look at the Appendices. Then Question, Read, Recite, Review, and Reflect.
As both Aristotle and Henry David Thoreau maintained, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” As you read this book, I urge you to take time to think. Ask yourself what seems particularly valuable to you personally and to your work. What new information or insight will stay with you and become a part of who you are, how you use language, and how you see the world? What do you want to remember?
As Thomas Friedman suggests in Thank You for Being Late, if someone keeps you waiting for lunch, use that found time to do some mental housecleaning. Let yourself daydream. Do some creative thinking. You might come up with a brilliant solution to a vexing problem that has flummoxed scientists for years. You might concoct a theory that explains why that apple fell to the ground or what happens when gravity becomes so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. If reading this book causes you to miss a deadline or two, I hope you'll thank me – as I thank the many teachers, writers, scientists, thinkers, and technological leaders whose words and examples have inspired me – for making you late.
How this book is organized
Part One: Writing (Chapters 1–4) covers explaining complex technologies clearly, communicating internationally, working with detail, animating your sentences with verbs, expanding your expressive range, writing in the first person, going beyond “Plain English,” expanding your vocabulary, connecting with a wider audience both online and off, writing good leads, structuring your email messages, gauging your level of formality, knowing the basic language rules and when to break them, and reaching a wider audience by communicating inclusively.
Part Two: Speaking (Chapters 5–8) covers techniques for mastering the physical and behavioral skills of public speaking relating to voice (breath, resonance, volume, pitch, rate, enunciation), eye contact (coverage, scan, length of connection), movement (gestures, facial expressions, posture, body location), as well as content (opening, overview, main points, transitions, closings), visuals, types of humor, distracting mannerisms (such as tongue click, lip smack, slow blink, and repetitive gestures), personality, overall impression (poise, command of material, presentation style, audience rapport), and practicing, delivering, and evaluating your presentations in a way that helps you both feel confident and project confidence.
Each chapter has seven components:
Preview/Summary
Body
Themes & Highlights
Questions for Further Thought & Reflection
Exercises
Just for Fun
Get Out of Jail Free
The first three components will help you execute the SQ4R method of reading, reflecting, and retaining. To make best use of the third component, Themes & Highlights, I encourage you to make your own list and then compare it with mine. Questions for Further Thought & Reflection will help you explore ways to apply what you've learned to both your professional and your personal life. These questions are linked to the ultimate goal of this book: To help you find the wisdom to become a better, more complete person. There are only four Exercises at the end of each chapter. The sixth component, Just for Fun, offers a little levity to reward you for your hard work.
If you've ever played the Monopoly board game, you know how to play the seventh component. At the end of each chapter you'll get a Get Out of Jail Free card – but like so many things in life, it's not really free. You have to earn it by demonstrating your ability to avoid a common error in grammar, punctuation, word choice, or spelling that may undermine your credibility. I've highlighted these eight errors because they're among the most common I see on the part of technical writers. It's possible you make none of them, but if I were to take a not‐so‐wild guess, I'd say it's possible you make about half of them. It's even possible that you make a few of them nearly every time you write. After you have proven to me that you have eliminated the highlighted error from your repertoire of language errors, you are free to continue moving around the board – or in this case, to read the next chapter. If you want to go beyond eliminating those eight errors by eliminating another eight errors, you'll find further guidance in Appendix B. And if you're one of those what‐does‐it‐matter‐if‐it's‐grammatically‐correct‐as‐long‐as‐people understand‐me types, I'm going to do my best to convince you that correctness matters, and that, as Joseph Williams suggests, the best place for correctness is behind us.
The book is organized into two parts: eight chapters (consisting of seven chapter components each) and five appendices so that you can use it in multiple ways – as a fun read, a textbook, a quick‐reference guide, and a stimulus for deep reflection.
For additional tips, techniques, exercises, and advice, visit www.wilbers.com or preface your search with “Wilbers,” as in “Wilbers punctuation” or “Wilbers technical writing.” One note of caution: When searching the internet, be sure to spell my last name correctly. If you spell it “Wilburs,” as it is commonly misspelled, you'll end up at the website for Wilbur Chocolate or maybe at the website for Wilbur's of Maine Chocolate Confections. Both offer more enticing photos than mine, but my website will do more to help you develop your written and oral presentation skills.
So that's how you play the game of becoming a more persuasive writer, a more dynamic speaker, a more effective manager, a more inspiring leader, and a better all‐around human being. When you become that person, and when you inspire others to follow your lead, you make the world a better place.
Questions to ask yourself as you read this book
As you read this book, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions:
Do you believe that people who are good with numbers are generally not good with words?
Do you believe that correct grammar, punctuation, and word choice don't really matter as long as your audience understands what you're saying?
Do you know which words in the following word pairs are spelled correctly?
“The
principal/principle
goal of this book is to make you a more effective communicator and leader.”
“I wish I could give you a
complementary/complimentary
copy of this book.”
Are you prepared to communicate in a fundamentally altered, rapidly changing, and technology‐driven world?
What is your vision for a better world?
How do you want to be remembered?
Language has a life of its own, and like our precious planet, it's a marvelous, evolving creation that deserves our respect and humility. As I guide you on what I hope will be a transformative journey, I invite you to explore not only the utility of language but also its possibilities, beauty, and mystery.
Ready?
PART ONEWriting
CHAPTER 1Explaining Complex Technologies Clearly
Chapter 1 Preview
Writing in stages
Think of yourself as a translator
Adopt the seven habits of highly effective writers
Approach writing as a process
Don't be blocked by writer's block
Communicating internationally without ambiguity
Don't confuse non‐native speakers of American English
Limit your use of prepositionalized English
Don't assume that American & British English are identical
Don't be too quick to laugh at ESL or ELL errors
Connecting your thoughts with sentence & paragraph structure
Write in sentences, but think in three‐part paragraphs
Break sprawling sentences & paragraphs into shorter units
Use introductory elements & transitions to connect your thoughts
Emphasizing key points with sentence variety
Use trailing elements & asides for variety, emphasis, & elaboration
Invert your sentences for variety, transitions, & coherence
Chapter 1 Summary
This chapter covers your role as a technical communicator, stages in the writing process, writer's block, and writing habits, both good and bad. It invites you to reflect on habits that may lead to procrastination, and it offers some tips and techniques for silencing “the watcher at the gates” – so named by Friedrich Schiller in a letter to Christian Gottfried Körner and reflected upon by Sigmund Freud – that critical, sometimes overly critical, subconscious voice that can become hyperactive in the drafting process and shut you down. This chapter also suggests helpful methods for organizing, ordering, and connecting your material into coherent sentences and paragraphs using transitions, introductory elements, asides, and trailing elements.
Chapter 1: Explaining Complex Technologies Clearly
“I went into journalism because I love being a translator from English to English. I enjoy taking a complex subject and trying to break it down so that I can understand it and then can help readers better understand it.”
–THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, weekly columnist for The New York Times and author of Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
“I came home to try to read the instruction book for my new printer, which was written by an electrical engineer for another electrical engineer, one pro trying to impress another, two guys who whizzed through college math courses that to me were a solid brick wall, and here I sit, reading through pages of fabulous technical know‐how trying to figure out how to print on one side of the paper, not two, and it simply isn't there.”
–GARRISONKEILLOR, author and former radio host of The Prairie Home Companion
“If you force yourself to think clearly you will write clearly. It's as simple as that. The hard part isn't the writing; the hard part is the thinking.”
–WILLIAMZINSSER, Writing To Learn
This chapter challenges you to apply the same care and discipline you take in conducting your research to communicating your results, not only to fellow experts but also to policymakers and the general public. Your goals are clarity, coherence, emphasis, and readability.
Writing in stages
Writing is a journey and a process, not an event. Take it step by step. The first step is to think before you write. Don't begin drafting your abstract, lab report, or Ph.D. dissertation until you can complete this sentence: “The purpose of my research is to demonstrate . . .” In one sentence, not one paragraph, and not a 20‐minute soliloquy. Then let it flow as you draft, and examine it critically as you revise. Think, rethink, and review.
