Discussing technical communication with engineers: analogies that work

As professional technical communicators probably agree, effective communication starts with adapting to one´s audience. When it comes to discussing communication issues with engineers (or to understand communication issues as an engineer), appropriate engineering analogies may therefore help get the point across. The paper introduces several such analogies, stemming from 15 years of teaching practice. Professional communication can be presented as yet another case of optimization under constraints. In support of this view, direct analogies with electrical signals suggest three fundamental principles: (1) adapt to your audience, (2) maximize the signal-to-noise ratio, and (3) use effective redundancy. Optimal communication places messages first, not last; they first state the theorem then the proof. Effective vocal delivery does not stop at adopting an appropriate DC value: it also provides meaningful AC variations around this mean. Like electrical circuits, paragraphs benefit from adopting a parallel or serial structure. Good parallelism makes lists readable in the same way it makes algebra readable. Algebra, finally, is a model of keeping it simple for better readability