I totally disagree with the essence of this post. There is certainly something that news writers can teach the OP. That is, to speak/write clearly, precisely and completely, and to omit irrelevant information.
But reporters purposely violate my second piece of advice all the time – they fail to set the scene, or they only do so way at the end. They presume that readers of a story come to that story already equipped with certain knowledge, and that those readers have been following the story from the beginning. You have no right to do that.
The absolutely worst example of this practice comes in sports writing. Sports reporters will cram the whole game and a handful of cherry-picked highlights into the first two to four paragraphs, then spend the rest of the story backpedalling, recapping and jumping all over the place. This style may satisfy fans who want to know little more than who won and what was exciting about the game, but it is a *dreadful * way to explain anything. Please don’t do it.
I realize that I have written something that may not be clear, so let me rewrite it. This sentence should read:
…They presume that readers of today’s story come to that story already equipped with certain knowledge, and that those readers have been following the entire story from its very beginning, which may have been days, weeks or months ago. You have no right to do that…
I too am a reformed tech writere, and people say I explain things good. Stuyguy gave an excellent reply. My two cents.
Keep it simple. Explain what actually needs explaining. No more. No less.
Start at the beginning and work forwards. When you get to the end, stop. Many people cause themselves difficulties because they actually start somewhere in the middle. This isn’t good.
If a simple word will do, use a simple word. Having a good vocabulary doesn’t mean using lots of big words. It means using the simplest word that gets the job done.
Using your common sense, try to trim what you have to say down to the essentials. If people want more details, they’ll ask.
Don’t try to go faster than you can. Yes, you want to explain things without boring people. But if trying to rush causes problems, it doesn’t help anyone. Slow down!
Keep it simple.
Sometimes, the problem might not be your ability to explain. Sometimes, people don’t pay attention, and sometimes the conditions just aren’t right. Try to get the right conditions established. Are you ready and prepared to explain whatever you want to explain? Does the listener know that you are going to explain something, and are they giving you the amount of attention needed? Can they hear you well?
I second stuyguy’s dissent. Newspaper stories serve a specialized purpose and are designed in a unusual manner so they can be easily and quickly edited and broken up as needed. The essentials of the piece are arranged so that the basics of the entire story are at the very beginning and then supplemental material is arranged in discrete segments placed in order of importance. This serves the purpose of easy editing well - the editor can just remove segments of the article from the end working back as needed. But it’s rarely the best narrative structure.
Ugh. I hate to be Mr. Pissoneverybodyelse’sposts, but IMO this smartass crack is only half useful. Just reading more, IMO, will not help the OP.
He/she must read and pay careful attention to the writer’s technique, more so than content. Observe what methods the author uses to explain something clearly.
I suggest that the OP studies science or technical articles in some of the better *general interest * magazines. These writers make a specialty of explaining unfamiliar concepts to lay readers, so they generally know how to spell things out clearly and precisely. (And like I said earlier, do not copy sports reporters – at least not the ones who recap yesterday’s game in the sports section of your daily paper.)
Another tip occurred to me today: use props and draw diagrams. I do this all the time. No salt shaker, ketchup bottle or blank paper napkin is safe when I’m explaining something to a friend at dinner.
I wish others would do it too. I am an extremely visually-oriented person, and I know that there are others like me out there. It is so much easier to grasp a difficult concept when it is put in graphic form.
Isn’t that the truth! Without a whiteboard or piece of paper or something, I feel like I can hardly talk.
Great advice above, particularly from stuyguy and ianzin. Make as straight a shot through the material from beginning to end as you can. Write it first, even if you can’t work from notes, and writing in outline format is a great help in organization.
I admit I sometimes use a kind of blend of the newspaper style and the technical style. I remember that a teacher I had many years ago told me his basic rules for a verbal presentation. He said to always do three things:
Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
Tell them what you came to say.
Tell them what you just told them.
I still use this. But the intro should be short and sweet. A fast summary of what the purpose and goal of the presentation is. Then present your material in organized pieces. Then a quick wrap up, and you’re out.
And I still sweat getting up in front of a group, even after 20 years of training users on new systems.
Red Barchetta:Writing and speaking involve the same process used to tell a story. If you can answer who, what, where, when and why then you are doing better than 90% of the people who are paid to be journalists. In fact, I would encourage you to take a college level course in journalism. The process of investigating, analyzing and reporting the results in an unbiased form is the objective of a good journalist.
You can also review basic writing skills found in any English Grammar course. There you’ll find that a paragraph begins with a stated topic. Each additional sentence in the paragraph expands on the topic with additional information. It’s best to keep sentences short and to the point. What makes writing coherent is the absence of information not directly related to the topic.
As has been discussed already, it is useful to jot down what you want to convey. By laying it out in an orderly and logical manner you can fill in the words that flow together. A good tool to use is a thesaurus, which most word processors have built in to them. I often change words because they were already used in a nearby sentence or simply didn’t have a rhythm to the overall sound. It’s not unlike composing poetry or music. It’s a skill like anything else and it takes practice and knowledge to make it work.
I agree with this, and I now think I didn’t make myself very clear.
I can see that without more explanation than I gave, the intent of the three steps may not be clear. They are not meant to imply that you should say the same thing three times.
Let me clarify.
Step 1 - Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
This is a short intro. You mention the subject your covering, the goals of the presentation, the information you want your audience to leave with. In other words, tell them what the subject is you’re going to cover. If this is more then the equivalent of a paragraph or two, you’ve probably overdone it.
Step 2 - Tell them what you came to say.
Make your presentation. This is the “telling something well once” part.
Step 3 - Tell them what you just told them.
Now wrap up, again very short. Mention again the main goal of the presentation, tick off the main points that they should have learned and how they apply to that goal. Mention any source material for follow up. Again, the equivalent of a paragraph or two here is the goal.
The way the steps were phrased is just intended as an easy short-hand way to remember the above.
I understand and I’m familiar with the idea. But I disagree. The “three step” method is useful in some situations like when you’re verbally instructing a group (and I’ve used it in situations like that). But I don’t see it as a general model.
Or:
I still don’t agree and allow me to explain why.
I understand and I’m familiar with the idea. But I disagree. The “three step” method is useful in some situations like when you’re verbally instructing a group (and I’ve used it in situations like that). But I don’t see it as a general model.
These are the reasons why I disagree with what you said.
<B>OP Here</B> (sorry for the bold, but people often miss my followup posts)
While I appreciate everyone’s advice, I’ve noticed that most of it pertains to writing, which as I explained, is not a problem for me - hell, my career revolves around it.
Let me give an example from today that sort of illustrates my problem:
One of my friends asked what I was doing tonight. I responded that I was going to watch “The Office.” I then mentioned that if he wanted to hang out, that wouldn’t be a problem as I could catch it on NBC. I had meant to say NBC.com, as in on the website, whereas, what I stated didn’t make any sense at all.
That’s not the best example, but it’s the only one I could think of. Granted, I know everyone slips up on occasion, and I wouldn’t consider that a major error were anyone else to say it. But for me, it seems to be a consistent problem along those lines.
What you need to do it get, um, one of those things. You know. Those thingys people use for, um, stuff. Then do one of those workshops. You know the ones. The ones that help with the stuff and the other things. Then buy once of those square things. You know, the ones that hang on walls. They have a frame or something and people fix their hair in front of them… um… mirrors.
Then just do the thing like they did in the class and sometimes use the thingy.