VI correspondence 73

6.1. Common letter components 75

6.2. Types of correspondence 77

6.2.1. Technical cooperation 77

6.2.2. Technical visits abroad 78

6.2.3. Technical visits from abroad 80

6.2.4. Technical training 81

6.2.5. Requesting information 82

6.2.6. Complaint and adjustment letters 82

6.2.7. Application letter 84

6.2.8. Letter of recommendation 86

6.2.9. Resume/CV 88

6.2.10. Cover letters 93

6.2.11. Thank you letters 95

6.2.12. Memorandum format 96

6.2.13. Emails 98

VII spoken presentations and interviews 99

7.1. Introduction to spoken presentation 101

7.2. Preparing and delivering formal spoken presentation 102

7.3. Scientific argumentation and contra argumentation 108

7.3.1. Appropriate phrases for develping an argument 109

7.4. Interviews 112

7.4.1. Some interview tips 113

7.4.2. Common interview questions and answering hints 114

VIII bibliography 117

I

Foreword

This book has the sole purpose of presenting the basic formats of communication relevant for students' of science and technology field of ex­pertise. The book is designed as a supplementary textbook on the core prin­ciples of written and spoken types of communications in science and tech­nology. Therefore it deals with the general structure of reports, theses, re­sumes, the most frequent documents that an engineer has to produce. It is to provide the 'theoretical' knowledge of characteristics of these types of com­munication. The practical work is intentionally not included here. That is to follow the tendencies in contemporary English language teaching method­ology, namely, that practice is tailor-made according to actual students and their needs at the moment, rarely uniform and preset. By making students aware of basic points, types, characteristics and styles of scientific and tech­nical communication, the book is to serve as a starting point in an attempt to make them expand and perfect their communication skills. The aim of the book is to instruct and enable students to produce their own pieces of writing or speaking. It is our belief that the true advancement in those skills will come through actual practice and that therefore theoretical knowl­edge as presented here need not be excessive.

The language this book is written in is purposefully simple. It is to allow easy and fast comprehension of the subject, the organisational struc­ture of the types of communication. The book does not deal with the char­acteristics and style of the language of science and technology as that is a different subject matter, outside this realm. Yet, it should be clear that the language of actual documents or presentations is far from the simplified ver­sion presented here. The students should strive towards clarity and precision but never at the expense of the quality of language they employ.

Learning the principles of written and spoken presentation in English is done with the ultimate purpose of better communicating scientific and technical knowledge to other professionals but also nonspecialists. The principles of presentation considered here are based on the scientific method of research. If those are consistently applied, the scientific content that is presented will be better comprehended, analysed and critically examined.

The scientific method is a process by which scientists endeavour to construct an accurate representation of the world. In order to achieve that it is a must to avoid all possible personal and cultural influences in the inter­pretation of the phenomena in question. That is done by the use of standard procedures and criteria in developing a theory or an explanation. The same idea applies to the written or spoken presentation of those findings. The use of standard presentation structures ensures clarity, obvious rationale for the thesis, and is highly persuasive in the sense that the audience gets a strong impression that the author is a knowledgeable person, an expert.

Scientific and technical presentation communicates specific infor­mation about a specific subject to a specific audience for a specific purpose. Generally speaking, scientific and technical presentation often focuses on resolving some problem or the delivery of information. The audience ele­ment is crucial for successful presentation. You have to make a precise judgment about who you write for or talk to, and according to that adapt your presentation to the audience's needs, expectations, levels of under­standing, background. The purpose of scientific presentation may be to in­form and/or persuade the audience that your method of resolving a problem is effective and efficient. The achievement of the preset purpose proves the validity of your presentation.

Before discussing these types of communication they need to be prop­erly defined.

Scientific communication deals with ideas rather than products. It presents data, inferences and conclusions drawn from those. The in­for­ma­tion or the idea is the message. Most scientific information is com­municated through articles in journals or in conference proceedings. Scien­tists' reputa­tions are based on the papers they publish, i.e., the results of their research.

Closely connected to this is science communication. It will not be the subject of this book, as it is more of a "popular writing". Opportunities in science communication are growing rapidly as technology becomes more complex and there is an increasing need for writers to "translate" informa­tion about science and technology to non-specialists. Science writing pre­sents information about science or technology for a general audience, such as readers of a newspaper or a magazine, newsletters, press release, TV and radio broadcast scripts.

Technical communication shares with science communication the primary objective to inform, yet is done for an even broader range of read­ers. It involves proposals, instructions, manuals, etc. Those can be classified as external documents. Technical communication also includes in-house documents such as standards and procedures relevant for the proper and easier work. Technical communication is a subset of business communica­tion which presents a wider group of information related to the overall functioning of an organisation.

Scientific and technical communications can be of three basic types:

- writing;

- oral presentations;

- graphical communications.

As technology spreads into more areas of our lives, communications expanded beyond just writing and speaking to include videography, multi­media design, Web design, and other practices. Hereby dealing with the first two types, that is with verbal communication, our goals will be:

- to promote excellence in technical communications;

- advance awareness of the profession;

- foster the professional growth.

Language communication situations in which engineers and techni­cians find themselves are usually of these kinds:

• talking about oneself and one’s work;

• travel;

• social situations (introduction, small talk);

• routine telephone calls;

• client contacts;

• hosting visitors from visiting companies/institutes/faculties;

• describing a process or working methods;

• discussion on deliveries, installation, maintenance;

• fault analysing, solving problems;

• tutoring a new employee;

• reading manuals, instructions;

• reading professional documentation;

• writing email messages, faxes, notes;

• writing professional documents;

• giving a presentation;

• meetings, negotiations.

Scientific and technical communication skills are more important than ever in today's competitive world (R.Barass 1978). For most engineers, writing reports, letters, memos, or speaking to various kinds of audience and in various situations, is nearly an everyday occurrence. But first of all, get­ting a job is often a difficult task. An effective resume should promote you well enough. Engineers are communicators. After performing an analysis or a design, the practicing engineer must somehow communicate the results of his or her work to others. These "others" might be a supervisor, a fellow en­gineer, a client, a government agency, or general public. At one level, there are companies that specialise in preparing technical publications such as user manuals, catalogues, and training aids. But every engineer will be in­volved in some aspect of technical communications. Scientific and technical communication involves gathering, analysing, and distributing scientific and technical information efficiently and accurately to specific audiences.

Designing effective presentation requires insightful and well-trained thinking strategies that can produce clarity in communication without over­simplifying scientific issues. The results are substantive, not merely cos­metic: improving the quality of presentation actually improves the quality of thought and vice versa.

The fundamental purpose of scientific discourse is not mere presen­tation of information and thought, but rather its actual communication (R.Barass 1978). The content that the author wants to convey is inseparable from the form they employ. With that as an aim we should always bear in mind that readers do not simply read, they interpret. Information is inter­preted more easily and more uniformly if it is placed where most readers expect to find it. These needs and expectations of readers affect the inter­pretation not only of tables and illustrations but also of prose itself. Readers have relatively fixed expectations about where in the structure of prose they will encounter particular items of its substance. If writers can become con­sciously aware of these locations, they can better control the degrees of rec­ognition and emphasis a reader will give to the various pieces of informa­tion being presented. For that reason this book focuses on teaching the structure of various types of presentation.

This underlying concept of reader expectation is perhaps most im­mediately evident at the level of the largest units of discourse. (A unit of discourse is defined as anything with a beginning and an end: a clause, a sentence, a section, an article, etc.) A research article, for example, is gener­ally divided into recognisable sections, sometimes labeled Introduction, Ex­perimental Methods, Results and Discussion. When the sections are con­fused - when too much experimental detail is found in the Results section, or when discussion and results intermingle - readers are confused. In smaller units of discourse the functional divisions are not so explicitly labeled, but readers have definite expectations all the same, and they search for certain information in particular places. If these structural expectations are continu­ally violated, readers are forced to divert energy from understanding the content of a passage to unraveling its structure.

The presentation principles we have suggested here make conscious for the author some of the interpretive clues readers derive from structures. Armed with this awareness, the author can achieve far greater control (al­though never complete) of the reader's interpretive process. As a concomi­tant function, the principles simultaneously offer the author a fresh re-entry to the thought process that produced science. In real and important ways, the structure of the prose becomes the structure of the scientific argument. Im­proving either one will improve the other.

The author owes special thanks to the reviewers for their insightful and most helpful comments and remarks.