Абрамова Р.Н., Болсуновская Л.М. Нефтегазовое дело. Техническая и профессиональная коммуникация
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PART II PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
Unit 1 – POSTER PRESENTATION
I. LEAD-IN DISCUSSION
1. What exactly is a poster presentation?
A poster presentation advertises your project. It combines text and graphics
to present your project in a way that is visually interesting and accessible. It
allows you to display your work to a large group of other scholars and to talk
to and receive feedback from interested viewers.
Poster sessions have been very common in the hard sciences for some time,
and they have recently become more popular as forums for the presentation
of research in other disciplines like the social sciences, service learning, and
the humanities.
2. What exactly is the "presentation" part of a poster presentation?
When you are standing in front of your poster, you – and what you choose to
say – are as important as the actual poster. Be ready to talk about your
project, answer viewers’ questions, provide additional details about your
project, and so on.
3. What will the people viewing my poster be expecting from it?
A Symposium draws a varied audience from across the university and the
surrounding community. In general, your audience members will fall into one
of two groups:
1. Scholars and students from your general area
These people will be familiar with the basic concepts you’re working with,
field-specific terminology, and the main debates facing your field and
informing your research. However, don’t assume that they are familiar with
all of the technical details you address in your project; remember that even
within a specific field of study, there are lots of sub-fields. This audience will
probably be most interested in clear, specific accounts of the what and the
how of your project.
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2. Scholars, students, and community members who are not familiar with
your area of study
These people may have a very basic understanding of your field, but they
probably won’t be familiar with terms or with the specific debates that are
current in your field. They’ll especially need you to avoid over-technical
terms and jargon. This audience will be less interested in specific details and
more interested in the what and why of your project – that is, your broader
motivations for the project and its impact on their own lives. This audience
gives you an opportunity to teach them about the interesting information
you’ve been learning and to convince them that the kind of work you are
doing can – eventually, perhaps – change the world!
As you can see, different audience members will be looking for different
kinds of information. It’s your job to provide enough specific information to
satisfy people from your general area, yet also provide enough general
information to interest those outside of it. Talk with your mentor about how
to balance the needs of these two audiences.
TASKS
1. Constructing a poster
What goals should I keep in mind as I construct my poster?
1. Clarity of content. You will need to decide on a small number
of key points that you want your viewers to take away from your
presentation, and you will need to articulate those ideas clearly
and concisely.
2. Visual interest and accessibility. You want viewers to notice
and take interest in your poster so that they will pause to learn
more about your project, and you will need the poster’s design
to present your research in a way that is easy for those viewers
to make sense of it.
How much information can I include on my poster?
One of the biggest pitfalls of poster presentations is filling your poster
with so much text that it overwhelms your viewers and makes it
difficult for them to tell which points are the most important. Viewers
should be able to skim the poster from several feet away and easily
make out the most significant points.
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The point of a poster is not to list every detail of your project. Rather,
it should explain the value of your research project. To do this
effectively, you will need to determine your take-home message. What
is the single most important thing you want your audience to
understand, believe, accept, or do after they see your poster?
Once you have an idea about what that take-home message is, support
it by adding some details about what you did as part of your research,
how you did it, why you did it, and what it contributes to your field and
the larger field of human knowledge.
What kind of information should I include about what (how,
why) I did?
- In the hard sciences, the what of a project is often divided into its
hypothesis and its data or results. In other disciplines, the what is
made up of a claim or thesis statement and the evidence used to
back it up.
- Include information about the process you followed as you
conducted your project (how).
- Give your audience an idea about your motivation for this project.
What real-world problems or questions prompted you to undertake
this project? What field-specific issues or debates influenced your
thinking? What information is essential for your audience to be able
to understand your project and its significance? In some disciplines,
this information appears in the background or rationale section of a
paper.
How will the wording of my ideas on my poster be different
from my research paper?
In general, you will need to simplify your wording. Long, complex
sentences are difficult for viewers to absorb and may cause them to
move on to the next poster. Poster verbiage must be concise,
precise, and straightforward. And it must avoid jargon.
Once I have decided what to include, how do I actually design
my poster?
The effectiveness of your poster depends on how quickly and easily
your audience can read and interpret it, so it's best to make your
poster visually striking. You only have a few seconds to grab
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attention as people wander past your poster; make the most of those
seconds.
How should I lay out my poster?
In general, people expect information to flow left-to-right and top-
to-bottom. Viewers are best able to absorb information from a
poster with several columns that progress from left to right.
Even within these columns, however, there are certain places where
viewers’ eyes naturally fall first and where they expect to find
information.
How much space should I devote to each section?
This will depend on the specifics of your project. In general,
remember that how much space you devote to each idea suggests
how important that section is. Make sure that you allot the most
space to your most important points.
How much white space should I leave on my poster?
White space is helpful to your viewers; it delineates different
sections, leads the eye from one point to the next, and keeps the
poster from being visually overwhelming. In general, leave 10–30 %
of your poster as white space.
Should I use graphics?
Visual aids are one of the most effective ways to make your poster
visually striking, and they are often a great way to communicate
complex information straightforwardly and succinctly. If your
project deals with lots of empirical data, your best bet will be a
chart, graph, or table summarizing that data and illustrating how
that data confirms your hypothesis.
If you don’t have empirical data, you may be able to incorporate
photographs, illustrations, annotations, or other items that will
pique your viewers’ interest, communicate your motivation,
demonstrate why your project is particularly interesting or unique.
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Don’t incorporate visual aids just for the sake of having a pretty picture
on your poster. The visual aids should contribute to your overall
message and convey some piece of information that your viewers
wouldn’t otherwise get just from reading your poster’s text.
How can I make sure that my poster is easy to read?
There is a number of tricks you can use to aid readability and
emphasize crucial ideas. In general:
Use a large font. Don’t make the text smaller in order to fit more onto
the poster. Make sure that 95 % of the text on your poster can be read
from 4 feet away. If viewers can’t make out the text from a distance,
they’re likely to walk away.
Choose a sans-serif font like Helvetica or Verdana, not a serif font, like
Times New Roman. Sans-serif fonts are easier to read because they
don’t have extraneous hooks on every letter. Here is an example of a
sans-serif and a serif font:
Once you have chosen a font, be consistent in its usage. Use just one
font.
Don’t single-space your text. Use 1.5 or double-spacing to make the
text easier to read.
For main points:
Use bold, italicized, or colored fonts, or enclose text in boxes. Save
this kind of emphasis for only a few key words, phrases, or sentences.
Too much emphasized text makes it harder, not easier, to locate
important points.
AVOID USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, WHICH CAN BE HARD
TO READ.
Make your main points easy to find by setting them off with bullets or
numbers.
How should I prepare for my presentation?
You should re-familiarize yourself with the larger project you’re
presenting. Remind yourself about those details you ended up
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having to leave out of the poster, so that you will be able to bring
them up in discussions with viewers. Then, practice, practice,
practice!
Prepare a four-to five-minute overview of the project, where you
walk these pre-viewers through the poster, drawing their attention
to the most critical points and filling in interesting details as
needed. Make note of the kinds of questions these pre-viewers
have, and be ready to answer those questions. You might even
consider making a supplemental handout that provides additional
information or answers to predictable questions.
Should I read from my poster?
No! Make sure you are familiar enough with your poster that you
can talk about it without looking at it. Use the poster as a visual aid,
pointing to it when you need to draw viewers’ attention to a chart,
photograph, or particularly interesting point.
2. Imagine your poster with an upside-down triangle centered from the top to
the bottom. Discuss the following questions.
1. Main Focus Area
Location of research fundamentals: Title, Abstract, Results, Conclusion
2. Secondary Emphasis
Location of important info: Intro, Results, Summary
3. Supporting Area
Location of supporting info: Methods, Discussion
4. Final Info Area
Location of supplemental info: References, Acknowledgments, Personal
information
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UNIT 2 – TELEPHONING
I. LEAD-IN DISCUSSION
The following tests can also be used at the classes, as 30-second exercise at
the beginning of each class.
TEST 1
Look at these three lines for 30 seconds. Pick out what student will remember
what box. Then write down what was in them. One, two, three……..
Remember 30 seconds.
1. A unique collection of complicated memory activities.
2. 432881096377
3. G Y B V W W B Y G V
TEST 2
Write down a sequence of ten letters/numbers. During this activity say things
only once – do not repeat them! Whisper your sequence to another student of
the opposite group, who whispers it to another student and so on. The last
student in this group writes down what he/she has heard. The last student
then says the sequence aloud. DID AN ACCURATE MESSAGE GET
THROUGH?
Does this happen when you talk on the phone?
When you answer a phone for someone else, do you offer to take a message?
If you take a message, do you write it down?
If you write it down, do you check spelling and numbers?
EXERCISES
Ex. 1 – Possible variants
Ex. 2
1. G 6. A
2. F 7. B
3. C 8. D
4. J 9. F
5. H 10. I
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Ex.3
A – 1; B – 5; C – 6; D – 2; E – 7; F – 1; G – 4
Ex 4. Possible variants
Ex. 5
1. Two- business and residential
2. Yes, six other PhoneDiscs
3. No, it’s on five regional discs
4. It can be searched by name, address, phone number, area code and
SIC code.
Ex. 6. Read the text about British Telecom’s Chargecard. Read the
statements. Circle T (TRUE) and F (FALSE).
1. T
2. F – No need to be embarrassed about asking to use someone else’s
phone for free.
3. F – It actually costs LESS to dial direct from a BT public phone using
a BT Chargecard, than to pay cash.
4. F – You can use your BT Chargecard to phone home from more than
120 countries.
5. T
6. T
7. F – You’ll have the option of limiting the BT Chargecard calling to
your home number only!
Ex. 7 – Possible variants
Ex. 8 – Possible variants
Ex. 9
1. d 6. a
2. e 7. i
3. b 8. h
4. j 9. g
5. f 10. c
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Ex. 10
1. a 6. c
2. a 7. a
3. b 8. c
4. b 9. b
5. c 10. b
11. a
Ex. 11
1. dialled 6. stand
2. extension 7. checked
3. troubled 8. confirm
4. pager 9. problems
5. directory 10. appointment
DISCUSSION: Telephone call activity
Telephone call 1
Eric is a customer. He did not identify himself at all throughout the
conversation. He spoke at a very fast rate and used an exaggerated
exclamation: "Wow". He did not make much use of politeness strategies in
his call. In other words, this telephone call departs from the basic principles
of politeness and of self-identification normally given in business textbooks.
Telephone call 2
In this second call, Eric identified himself at the second turn. He used an
appropriate opening remark to ask for the person being called. He repeated
the information given to him by the other party (lines 02 and 06). In the
closing, he thanked the other party twice and said Bye-bye to close the
conversation. In this case, Eric is conducting the so-called a client call.
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Telephone call 3
This call followed the standard structure of a business call. Eric used a polite
greeting phrase to open the channel. When Carrie answered the phone, he
immediately identified himself and stated the purpose of his call. Then he
explained the procedure of their visit and what he was going to do to help the
client. This telephone conversation is more elaborate.
All three of these are business calls, but they differ in the degree of business
contact. In the first call, there is no established business contact. It is an
initial business call, or what is called a one-time only call. It is brief, and
sounds a bit rude.
The second call is to an established business contact with a client. It is more
polite.
The third one is to a client who has already bought their service. This is a
potential long-term business contact.
These three calls differ in the opening, the self-identification and the
elaboration of details. With a one-time-only call, the caller did not identify
himself. He used “Hello”, “May I ask” to open the channel. With an
established business contact, the caller used “Hello”, “Good morning” and
then “May I ask” to open the conversation. He then stated his name, and
company to identify himself. The caller switched between the two codes of
Cantonese (local language in Hong Kong) and English. All three calls ended
with “OK’, “Thanks” and “Bye” as the closing remarks.