PDF Thinking Like an Engineer 2e - uqu.edu.sa

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Thinking Like an Engineer

An Active Learning Approach

Stephan, Bowman, Park, Sill, Ohland

Tips and Techniques

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• In reality, the most successful engineers have

developed good communication skills both oral and written

• You might have the best idea in the known universe, but at some point you are going to have to convince someone to supply the $200 million needed to

develop it

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• You must be able to communicate effectively not only that you have this great idea for a practical antigravity device, but also that it will actually work and that you are the person to lead the team developing it

• Our intent here is not to make you expert

communicators, but to at least make you aware of the importance of good communication skills in

engineering, as well as to give you a bit guidance and practice developing these skills

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• Two persons X and Y give a presentation

• Both use the same set of PowerPoint slides

• When person X presents, every single person in the

audience seemed to be completely brain-dead within 3 minutes

• It was awful!

• When person Y presents, he maintains the attention of the audience for the entire 15 minutes using the same PowerPoint slides

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• Who is my audience?

• Know the age group, demographics, prior knowledge about the topic, and what positions or opinions they may hold.

• What is my purpose?

• What do I hope to accomplish? What response do l expect?

What will the audience get out of my speech?

• Where is all the equipment I need?

• Where will the talk be held?

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• When am I on the program agenda?

• Will I be the first presenter (when audience is most alert) or the last one before lunch (when they are becoming restless) or after lunch (when they are sleepy)? What will I need to do to keep my listeners attentive?

• Why am I giving this talk?

• Why is the audience here?

• How long should I talk?

• Remember that only few people can focus for more than 20 minutes. Trim your talk so that people will ask for more

information rather than thinking, "When will he sit down?"

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Short

Use short sentences.

Avoid too many details.

Do not talk too long.

Simple

Avoid wordy, lengthy phrases.

Strong

Use active voice and action verbs.

Sincere

Convey empathy, understanding, and respect for the audience.

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Introduction (to capture the interest of the audience)

What are you going to talk about?

Why should the audience care?

What is it about your subject that they would find most interesting

Body (to keep your audience interested)

They will continue to listen to you if you keep the material interesting and relevant to them

Divide into 2–3 main points.

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Conclusion

Summarize main points.

Show appreciation for your audience’s attention Allow for a few questions

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• Keep each slide simple, with one concept per slide. As a rule, use no more than six lines per slide. Each slide should correspond to an average of 60 seconds of

speech.

• If possible make slides in landscape format.

• Present data in simple graphs rather than in lists or tables. Avoid excessively complex graphs with

extensive data. If you must present tables, divide them among several slides.

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• Pictures, diagrams and video simulations all may

enhance your presentation. Be sure that all are large enough to be seen by the audience, and have color schemes that do not appear washed out when

projected. Often, such items are designed for viewing on a small screen and do not project well. Be sure to test them prior to your presentation.

• Use bullet points with important phrases to convey ideas. Avoid complete sentences.

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• Large size text is best. A font size of at least 18 points and preferably no less than 24 points should be used.

This includes all objects, such as axis and legend captions, table headings, figure symbols, and

subscripts.

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• Use high-contrast colors. Avoid fancy fonts, or light colors, such as yellow. Avoid using all capitals.

• Use a light background and dark print to keep the room brighter.

• Keep background styles simple and minimize

animation to avoid distracting from the presentation.

Keep all the slide backgrounds the same throughout a single presentation.

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Size 44

Size 40

Size 36

Size 32 Size 28

Size 24

Size 20

Size 18

Size 12

Size 10

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Determine as the balls fall if the distance between them increases, decreases or stays the same.

Distance increases, decreases, stays

same

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Yellow on White

Light colors on White ^

Blue on Black



Green on Black

Don't use annoying backgrounds like this…

…or like this

Or distracting animation…like this

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• How many of you have had an instructor who simply reads the contents of the slides with no explanations?

• How many have had an instructor who seems to be

terrified of the audience, cowering in fear and trying to disappear into the wall?

• How many have tried desperately to read the contents of a slide containing hundreds of words in a very small font?

• If you have not yet suffered through one or more such painful presentations you will!

• Do not impose such things on your own audiences.

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 Eyes on audience

 No hands in pockets

 Keep feet still.

 Don't play with notes.

 Don't read notes.

 Arrive early enough to make sure that all

technology is present

 Practice!

 Relax

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 Don’t turn your back to the audience

 Don’t cover your mouth while speaking

 Don’t read your presentation from a prepared text

 Don’t tell inappropriate jokes

 Don’t overuse “I”

 Don’t repeatedly say “um” or “uh”

 Don’t be afraid of little silence if you need to glance at notes or collect your thoughts