Engineering Words: Communicating clearly in the workplace

Description

Over the course of a career, every engineer needs to communicate, in both written and oral form, with other engineers and non-engineers. Yet, too many engineers never develop this basic skill. Engineering Words draws on the authors' extensive experience as technical communicators and teachers of a popular class in technical communication for engineers at the University of California, Riverside, to present a comprehensive introduction to communicating in the business world. This book covers everything from the basics of clear writing to résumés to cover letters to requirements documents to presentations and much more. Engineering Words can be used as a textbook for classes that train engineers to be effective communicators. It can also serve as a self-study text that even experienced engineers will find useful for improving their communication skills. Engineering Words Front Cover Inside Cover Copyright Notices Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Welcome You can learn to communicate Terms we use in this book Who is this book for? Chapter 2. Clear Communication Guidelines Clear communication matters in the business world The basics What’s in a sentence? Active voice Present tense Second person Repetition Reduce the reading level User-focused, user-centric Short is good Short sentences Short paragraphs Short sections Headings Building sentences and paragraphs Topic sentences The rest of the paragraph Example paragraph Parsing the example Chapter 3. The Business Context of Communication Writing for professors/peer reviewers Writing for your boss/business peers/the public So what is the business context? The financial context: the flow of money in a business Revenue COGS/variable costs Gross profit Overhead/GA/fixed costs Net profit Retained earnings Communication in the context of the flow of money Historical/technical context: prior art and problem-solving Products solve problems Personal context: the technology adoption curve Innovators Early adopters The chasm Early majority/pragmatists Late majority/conservatives Skeptics/laggards Communicating in the context of solving problems Practical application: the business case Straight return on investment (ROI) Cost avoidance Chapter 4. Résumés and Cover Letters Cover letters Structure of a business letter The addresses The date and salutation The body The complimentary close Telling your cover letter story Résumés The job search environment Professional vs intern/first job résumés Structure and content Objective Special skills Work history Education Chapter 5. Flow of a Project in a Company Project start Business requirements Functional and technical specification phases Development (and testing) phase Reality check meeting Delivery phase The Secret Chapter 6. Designing Effective Presentations Designing your slides Some important terms Title slides Outlines Slide structure DO DON’T Text formatting Font size Font attributes Font type A last note about fonts and text Colors Contrast Structure and emphasis Setting mood Graphs Choose the correct graph type Format the graph well Spelling and grammar Conclusion Questions? Chapter 7. Handling Yourself and the Room in Presentations A day or two before the presentation Right before the presentation The presentation Manage yourself while you talk Use your body Use your voice It’s time for questions Politics in presentations Finishing up Chapter 8. Human Cognition About humans The physical world and biology Our vision The world happens in human brains Preattentive process Attentive process Combining preattentive with attentive Standards are preattentive Other processes Cocktail party effect Sensory adaptation Learning theory Experience Schemas Habits Interference Cognitive load Humans require explanations Chapter 9. Constructing Explanations Explanations and our brains Design and perception: visually explanations Foundational concept: visual space on a page Black space Gray space White space Principle 1: perception is active, fast, and largely preattentive Using Principle 1 when designing visual explanations Principle 2: figure and ground Using Principle 2 when designing visual explanations Principle 3: grouping Using Principle 3 when designing visual explanations Document to the question: cognitively constructed explanations What are the four user questions? Why should I care? What is it? How do I do it? Why did it do that? Chapter 10. Personas and Scenarios Why do you care? You can’t develop for yourself or for everyone What are preferred input modes? How do I improve my communication using VARK? V = Visual A = Auditory R = Reading K = Kinesthetic Input modes versus learning theory Why should I care about input modes? Personas How do I create a persona? How do I use a persona? Scenarios Requirements are implied Wrong personas and wrong scenarios What do you do with personas and scenarios? Chapter 11. Writing Functional Specifications The structure of a functional specification User guides Technical specifications Functional specifications Deconstructing functions and features Writing functions and features Priority Description What is it? Why does [persona] want it? How do we do it? What can go wrong? Action-result table Business and functional requirements Chapter 12. Testing Your Products Organizational styles Why test? What is a defect? What can be tested? Risk analysis and its effect on testing Calculating risk Reporting defects Creating test cases and test suites Deconstructing test cases What makes a good test case? Test cases are like recipes Structure of test cases Writing test cases for functions and features Test plan, suite, case naming and/or numbering Description What are you testing? Why does [persona] need this to work? How do you test this? How do you know this feature or function passed the test? Materials Prerequisite tests Action-result table Target pass/fail Appendix A. References Bibliography Index Colophon Back Cover