I suck at explaining things - any way to get better?

In My Humble Opinion
1

That’s right, I suck at explaining things and/or conveying ideas, whether it’s retelling a story, joke, life experience, or providing almost any kind of instruction. This isn’t so much in text (though this ambiguous post may prove otherwise), but rather more so verbally.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what sucks about it, but in my perception, it’s not fluent at all. Hell, it seems I’ll sometimes leave out a crucial detail, thus crippling the remainder of the sentence. I should note that I sometimes experience anxiety in these situations, and that may be a contributing factor.

Is there anything I can do to improve this, such as reading a book entitled “Explaining things for Dummies”?

2

Something that helped me, although it had not directly been intended to do so, was learning to do descriptions. Once the technique for a good description had become ingrained, it sort of transferred over to other kinds of explanations.

When I was little, most of my Spanish essays came back with a note saying “poor descriptions”, but asking what do I do to make my descriptions richer yielded no results. Apparently descriptions and cartwheels are two things you’re supposed to learn how to do without any explanations :stuck_out_tongue:

This is what I was told to do for a good description:

  • picture yourself in the place
  • use all your senses. What do you see, hear, touch, taste, smell; are things moving.
  • write a longer description than you really need, then pare it down. In the particular situation where I was doing descriptions, you would have to describe the same “space” many times, one after another (for example, stretches of road): what I’d do to avoid the usual one-liners (“This is a road. The road goes east and west”) was write a much, much longer description than I needed, then take different details for each piece. In one stretch I’d mention flowers, in another trees… the original big description had had both.

You say you’re better in writing. So, practice a bit in writing. Write down stuff that you find difficult to explain. Explain more than you think you should. Then pare the fluff down. Doing this more or less regularly for a short time should improve your skills. Once you’re more confident about your abilities the anxiety will go down and so your skill will increase even more.

Best wishes.

3

Work on your vocabulary. I’ve found that having more words at your disposal will help you convey the nuances you’re striving for. Also, if this is job-related and is something you do repetitively, you might try jotting down the process. Even if you don’t actually carry a crib sheet with you, the act of writing it down will help to ingrain it in your memory. Works for me, anyway.

4

Write an outline. It will help you organize the material in the way that makes the most sense.

Then put the outline away for a day and review it with fresh eyes before you start writing, to make sure you haven’t left anything out.

5

I find telling myself the story first helps. While I tell it, I make a mental note each time I realize that context is required. That way, when I finally tell someone else the story, I can tell them what they need to know first. Going on with the story itself is easier after that.

6

What exactly is it that you want?

7

:stuck_out_tongue:

8

Talk gooder. And stuff.

9

It helps to look at other peoples explanations of the same Idea your trying to convey, they may provide insight on how to explain the idea better.

Writing things down on paper, as you understand them, can help.

10

As someone who has specifically been told, “You explain things well,” here is my number one piece of advice: Drop the pronouns and other inexact descriptors.

My mother was the queen of sentences like, “Your father and brother went to get a Christmas tree and a wreath. He left a message to say he cut his finger when he picked it up. Call him back and tell him to get one with softer bristles.”

WTF is she saying? Who cut his finger, my brother or dad? *Which * object needs to be replaced, the tree or the wreath? And she would get flustered when I asked for a clarification! A certain class of bad explainers think people can read their minds.

Here’s my number two piece of advice: Set the scene, then start at the beginning.

If certain factors are going to play into the ongoing or later action of the story, tell them up front. Say something like, “Before I tell you about my grandma’s hilarious trip to the shopping mall, I should mention she’s as deaf as a scarecrow, but she thinks her hearing is perfect.” This sets the scene for grandma’s upcoming funny exchange with the clerk.

Then give your explanation in a very linear way, starting at square one. Don’t jump around. Don’t go to the end and backpedal.

Here’s my number three piece of advice: Anticipate pitfalls in advance, and compensate for them.

For example, if you’re going to tell a story about two different redheaded oboe players named Wally, find some other distinguishing characteristics to tell them apart in your story. If the similarities have nothing to do with the story, don’t even mention them. Say, “There are two kids in my band, a tall one and a short one. The short one put a firecracker in the teacher’s locker…”

If the similarities do have something to do with the story, mention it but use something else to distinguish them. Say, “There are two kids in my band. They look exactly alike and they have the same first name. The teacher mixes them up all the time, sometimes with hilararious results. Let me tell you what happened today, for example. One of the kids lives uptown, and the other lives downtown. The uptown kid put a firecracker in the teacher’s locker…”

When you know a confusing part is approaching, go slow and carefully.

Also, anticipate your listener’s incorrect presumptions. For example, say, “Now you’d think that a man who drank 10 beers would not be able to play flawless chess, but he seemed cold sober during the whole game and won handily.”

11

Damn. Should have bolded piece of advice #3.

Sorry. It’s late. I’m tired.

12

No, stuyguy, you did well. Good way to put things.

As for instructions, break all actions down to the smallest they can be. Then put them in order so you have a series of steps. Keep the sentences of the steps short and simple so you do not lose your way.

I taught technical writing for some years (yep–I made my living writing instructions) and I always made my students write me some simple instructions for everyday things: making coffee, changing a tire, transplanting a plant from a pot into the garden. Simple, non-technical stuff. But they were always surprised at how many steps each so-called “simple” procedure could have, and how clear things were when the steps were broken out and placed in order. In other words, don’t start with the big procedures (“How To Overhaul an Engine” or "Configuring the Widget 5000 Computer’); those are complicated and intimidating. Start with the common and familiar stuff you do daily.

Try it yourself: just what procedure are you following when you get a cold drink from the fridge? What steps are involved in making your morning coffee? How would you take a can of soup from the pantry and prepare it for a meal? Each is a procedure and can be described from start to finish. Practice by describing these events fully and completely, so anybody listening can follow the procedure; then try more difficult things. You’ll learn how to convey clear, concise, and foolproof instructions.

Don’t be discouraged if it takes a while. It’s a matter of practice, I find, but you can’t practice until you know that the secret is breaking the procedure down into small, separate actions. And every procedure can be broken down this way.

13

You should also check this perception with other people. I did a course years ago that involved several days of public speaking training. Apparently on a whim the trainer would have someone get up and speak to the subject written on a slip of paper pulled from a box. Everyone else would mark the efforts. Over the course of a week evryone did over a dozen speeches of various types, lengths and covering an array of subjects.

The most important thing I discovered was that if you keep the conversation lively and make the subject matter at least moderately interesting, then genertally you are doing far better than you think. Many of the flaws that you see in your own performance are not notriced by the audience at all - they don’t know what you intended to do or say. Most people in my class began by severely overestimating their failures. Finding that out takes a lot of pressure off your subsequent presentations.

The other thing that impressed me was the trainers advice to treat speaking like a sport. Just as a golfer can learn things watching better golfers we can learn watching good speakers. To this day if I am watching someone talk and I am not really interested in the subject matter, I watch how they keep the audience engaged. He also encouraged us to steal from other people - little things like mannerisms that we like, or a way of standing or an expression.

14

I very much used to have the same problem. I still have it sometimes, but I’m getting better. I’ve always admired people who are articulate in speech.

The best lesson I learned was to be concise, and cut out extraneous information as much as possible. Not everything needs to be explained when it’s not prompted for. Pick out what you think are the important details, and if any questions remain in the listener’s mind, let them ask.

Also, the art of verbal communication is more than just the words you say. In fact, I’d wager that 10% of it is the words you say, and 90% is the way you say them.

15

In a large part, this is what I do for a living. The main principle is establish the narrative - figure out what it is you want to say and then put in what is needed to say that. Don’t leave out any necessary details; don’t put in any distracting irrelevancies; arrange the elements of the narrative in a coherent order; follow the basics of good language; and be clear.

16

Put yourself in your shoes, don’t assume they have the same knowledge you do. Be exact and brief.

Maybe it would help if you recorded yourself and then listened to/transcribed what you said. What parts needed work, what should have been added?

17

Put yourself in their shoes. Sheesh.

But if you have to explain too much then they probably won’t get it anyway.

18

Volunteer tutor either adult literacy students or adult ESL students. You will be forced to pay close attention to the way you talk to them - they are not stupid, they just don’t share your communication style (in a BIG way). So you don’t need to dumb it down (the way you would with kids), you just need to be very clear.

They want very much to understand you, and they will help you figure out (in an immediately practical and rewarding way) how to follow the excellent advice that has been outlined here.

If you keep at it, the habits you develop will become second nature.

19

I have the same problem, and I would add to the good advice given here is to not be afraid to check your efforts with the person you’re explaining something to. If you feel yourself becoming difficult to understand, stop and ask, “Does that make sense?” or something of the sort. Occasionally I get myself into a real muddle and I’ll just stop altogether and say, “Wait. That’s confusing. Let me start over.” In my experience, this puts the listener at ease, and in turn s/he is much more willing to coach you through the explanation by asking questions or politely interrupting for clarification when needed.

Does that make sense?

20

One thing that helps is the Newspaper reporters inverted pyramid structure:

The most important parts of the story come first. Then you fill in the details around those anchors.

Do not start laying a foundation of seemingly unrelated facts, expecting to keep the listeners attention until you tie them all together. This can ONLY work if every single one of those facts is very interesting on it’s own.

Another problem I frequently encounter:
“I was at the store the other day…Well that isn’t so important…What I mean to say is that I was shopping and…well I needed to buy a present, so…Oh, did I mention that My Brother’s birthday is coming up? And he has always wanted…No, wait, that will spoil the story…So anyway, I was at the store and…It was Sears, because they were having a sale…”

In this case the speaker is continually interrupting himself. Drives me freaking batty.
Speak in complete sentences. Subject Verbs the object.