Module 1: Scientific Presentation

Four-hour lecture
The module is designed to help scientists and engineers make their research presentations more understandable, memorable, and persuasive. The module has three goals:

• to teach participants effective strategies for structuring their research presentations;
• to have participants completely rethink the design of visual aids (and, in particular, presentation slides);
• to have participants analyze what would be the best delivery style for themselves.

The techniques discussed in this module have wide applicability, but the examples and discussions will assume that the target audience for the presentation consists of peers.

Module 2: Fielding Questions

One-hour lecture
The module teaches the students how to handle questions from the audience in connection to their presentations.

Module 3: Communicating Science to the Public

Two-hour lecture
The module aims at helping research scientists to communicate their work to government officials, non-technical managers, and the general public. The main goal of the course is to teach scientists how to lead a non-technical audience up the mountain of their research so that the audience reaches what Richard Feynman called an “honest” understanding of the science. The class has four goals:

• to teach participants how to craft the story of their research (choosing the right entry point, stripping down the research to the essentials, and closing in a meaningful fashion);
• to teach participants how to select wording that keeps the audience on the trail (developing analogies and examples, making critical connections, and anticipating the audience’s questions);
• to teach participants how to select and design the key visual evidence that illustrates the research story;
• to teach participants how to develop a delivery style that will connect with the audience and establish credibility.

Module 4: Scientific Writing

Four-hour lecture
The module is designed to help scientists and engineers improve the way that they document their research in journal papers, conference publications, dissertations, and research reports. The course has three goals:

• to teach participants the differences between strong and weak structures, language, and illustrations in research documents;
• to make the writing process more efficient for participants;
• to give the participants a jumpstart on a research document they have to write.

The lectures contain practical in-class exercises.