Teacher Notes on Description-Writing Exercises

Extended Case 7: Giving Technical Talks

Goal:

To help students prepare and present effective technical talks (on their science projects to their classmates, for example) by using techniques that:

• satisfy the California Language Arts and science content standards,
• derive from empirical research in psychology and linguistics, and
• readily generalize to giving other talks in school, college, or on the job.

Strategy:

Most students have extensive experience with social speech, which is usually thin and terse (aside from classroom demands, they may get through the whole day with just a few short, slang phrases). But few students have much practice with technical speech: when speakers need to explain a serious, complex topic to an audience that expects to learn substantial new information, speech becomes dense and verbose. Textbooks face this challenge regularly in print, of course, and respond with many familiar textual features (such as section headings, tables of contents, and summaries). When speaking technically, a speaker therefore has the extra responsibility of replacing those familiar textual coping aids with verbal ("rhetorical") moves that help the audience in corresponding ways. (Hence, the middle and right-hand columns of the "Technical Talk Tips" table below contrast the audience-support moves available in printed and in purely verbal presentations of the same technical material.)

This case explicitly reveals and names for students the four communication problems that listeners have during a technical talk, and the four well-known, standard (sets of) techniques that good speakers use to anticipate and mitigate those problems. (Approaching talks in this problem-oriented way makes appropriate technique a matter of social responsibility, not merely public speaking skill.) Although general, this four-problem framework applies easily and directly to almost any classroom (or current-events) science topic. This means that examples for modeling or practicing the technical-talk techniques can be easily found in your on-going lessons.

SUGGESTIONS FOR EACH PROBLEM:

(A) Structure (Order).
The advice (in the right-hand column of the "Tips" table below) to clearly reveal each talk's structure and milestones (verbally, or with an introductory "table of contents" slide) appears in every book on how to give talks. But you will probably need to explain to students psychologist Donald Norman's related tip on "scope/depth tradeoffs." Shopping provides a familiar example:
When looking for wire at the hardware store, you face a "narrow and deep" situation--you can ignore all aisles except for the one marked "electrical" (narrow), but then you have to face many specific "deep" choices (copper or aluminum, coated or uncoated, braided or solid).
When shopping for ice cream, however, your situation is "broad and shallow"--31 flavors confront you, but then you only have to pick one scoop or two.
To succeed psychologically, a good technical talk must follow one of these same two scope/depth alternatives. Broad-ranging talks cannot get too detailed, while deeply detailed talks must stay narrowly focused.

Review (Rereading).
In a movie, viewers can easily tell when the action shifts from scene to scene. Likewise, the audience of a technical talk needs to easily tell when the speaker shifts from topic to topic. Student speakers therefore must learn to help their listeners topically by paying attention to their own "topic transitions" and signaling the audience about them. Using a personal story board, perhaps constructed of one sticky note per (sub)topic pasted on a large sheet of paper for easy rearrangement, is the standard, Disney-pioneered way of mapping out the "scene changes" (topic transitions) in a technical talk (so that the speaker can be sure to disclose them).

Understanding (Complexity).
As noted above, technical talks are much more dense with data than is ordinary speech. Most people can absorb dense information more easily by seeing it than by hearing it only. So most good technical speakers supplement their spoken words with things that their audience can also see: exhibits, handouts, pictures, summaries, or slides.

For very discussable, visually clever, gender-neutral examples of data-dense handouts or charts, visit http://www.cookingforengineers.com. This site diagrams dozens of kitchen recipes to concisely reveal which tasks to perform on which ingredients in which order.

For help planning good slides, the "Simple Tips" page (below, and for students) summarizes rules of thumb found in dozens of book-length treatments of slide design. If you wish to tap just one of those many published slide-advice discussions with high relevance to science class, consult Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanation (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1997), pp. 38-53, where Tufte elegantly shows and evaluates the actual slide used to justify the launch of space shuttle Challenger, which exploded on January 28, 1986.

Delivery (Presentation).
No matter how thoughtfully a speaker plans the structure, topic transitions, and data density for their technical talk, they still must actually deliver it aloud to their audience. The tips on the student chart for this delivery problem are rather more specific than for the other three problems, and of course students must physically try them out through personal practice to benefit from them. You can helpfully model these tips by presenting from a few sample slides, since slide/speech coordination often defeats beginners. Sticky-note prompts placed on the slides themselves can help nervous speakers manage the rough spots. "Casing the room" is another helpful behavior that you can model here--checking the lights, projector alignment and focus, and sight lines from the corners and rear--before launching into the prepared talk.

Case:

Technical Talk Tips
Problem	Technical writing, where the audience can...	Technical speaking, where the audience must...
STRUCTURE	Read in any order.	Listen in the speaker's order of presentation.
		Plan your scope/depth tradeoffs early (use either broad and shallow treatment or narrow and deep). Reveal (overtly summarize) your talk's structure (the audience cannot see your mental outline or table of contents). Announce structure milestones as you pass them (use verbal headings ["the third problem..."] and proleptics ["by contrast..."]).
REVIEW	Reread any passage.	Rely on the speaker to repeat if appropriate.
		Remember the slogan "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them." Identify and manage your topic transitions carefully, usually with planned repetition of structure cues. Practice to avoid pointless, accidental repetition.
UNDERSTANDING	Study and gradually understand.	Understand on the first hearing.
		Choose your vocabulary, examples, and comparisons to control your technical depth. Adjust to suit: Your audience's background. How your talk unfolds. Manage your data density: Control your amount of supporting detail. Supplement your talk with detail-bearing handouts (references, for example). Use visual aids (slides, models) to carefully increase data density without increasing confusion.
DELIVERY	Read at any pace.	Listen and absorb at the speaker's pace.
		(Before talking) spell out your list of claims (to confirm just how many claims you have). Rehearse privately: With your notes (to tune self-prompts). Before a mirror (to practice eye contact). With a clock (to check pace and length). Avoid saying one thing and showing another (plan and practice speech/slide coordination). Maintain audience interest: Use short, direct sentences. Show (appropriate) enthusiasm. Attend to audience needs (confused? can't hear? questions?).

 

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Simple Tips for Effective Technical Slides

Begin each slide with a headline sentence, not just a topic phrase.

Examples:
Drosophila [bad; too vague]
Drosophila Hmx gene [bad; so what?]
Drosophila Hmx gene directs mouse
inner-ear development. [good; asserts an interesting claim]

Use large fonts and simple layout for easy reading.

Rules of thumb:
Use no more than 8 words/line, 8 lines/slide maximum.
Can you read it easily if you stand over it on the floor?

Choose images carefully not to decorate but to reveal

• complex details,
• comparisons,
• examples.

Consider progressive disclosure when sequence is important
(sticky notes can help here).