Why Bother to Explain Complicated concepts Clearly

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Why Bother to Explain Complicated concepts
Clearly
In this course you will be writing a number of
reports. Most of them will be explanations to
others of your work or insights into the complex
world that is the current dynamic marketplace.
Understand that your task is not to provide a
barrage of facts and statistics that no one will
be able to understand. I know that this strategy
feels good Like, boy am I smart no one
understands me. However, this tact typically
shows a lack of understanding. The ability to
explain clearly is the mark of understandingtrue
insight. Let us consider here a few tips that may
help you in expressing your ideas clearly.
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A test
Before we begin may I want to give you a
test Question 1 Fifteen percent of 12 is a.)
More than 12, b.) Less that 12, or c.) Equal
to 12. Question 2 How much is 47 and
13? Question 3 You purchase a CD player for 90.
There is a sales tax on each item purchased of 4
percent. How much tax must you pay?
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Assumption 1 Most people are Smart
A few examples may help debunk this
assumption. Jay Hiezer reports the following in
his OM text. A test was given to all high school
students. One of the questions was Fifteen
percent of 12 is a.) More than 12, b.) Less
that 12, or c.) Equal to 12. An analysis of
the 17 and 18 year old students found that 48.9
of them got the question wrong!
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Other Examples
In a game show there were two groups of four high
school students. The students were selected from
their high schoolsi.e. they were some of the
best.The host would announce a category. The
first group to signal would receive the question.
The game host announced Category Mathematics. A
group, composed of four students rang-in. he then
read the question You purchase a CD player for
90. There is a sales tax on each item purchased
of 4 percent. How much tax must you pay. There
was a long science. Then the member of the group
conferred. The game show host called time. Still
there was silence. Finally, someone blurted out
3.50
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The weakest links
One of the rapid-fire questions was Topic
Arithmetic How much is 47 and 13. After a few
second pause the contestant saidin a confident
voice That would be 43. There is More I went
into a Burger King in Philadelphia with two of my
friends. We ordered ten items. When the order
came back. We were confused. The order had ten
items but the first few we looked at were not
correct. To our shock all ten items were
incorrect. Some were close but incorrect. We
showed this to the manager. He through the order
in the trash. And started over. When the order
finally arrived there were three things wrong. We
figuredHey close enough.
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Not a Sunny Day
When I was in the stat department at PENN, we
bought a Sun Work Station. The state of the art
in technical word processing. We then advertised
for a secretary with technical skills to operate
this equipment. We searched for months and
months. We put ads in the paper. We could not
find anyone. When we want to return the equipment
the sun people informed us that they could not
take it back at a full exchange price because we
had it for so long that the warranty ran out. A
sign in my neighborhood said Hamburgers 50
cents SPECIAL 7 for 3.50.
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The Reality People are less capable that you
think.
To communicate with your superiors, colleagues
and those who you supervise you must 1Keep your
sentences short. 2Avoid conditional If, Then
statements. 3If you must use conditional
statements, Then you must illustrate the idea
with an example. 4Introduce your idea. Develop
it, Illustrate it using an example or two and
Summarize it. This is called a section or the
idea package 5Provide a clear transition to the
next section or idea package.
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A lot less capablea lot.
6Never have two ideas in one section or idea
package. 7Give your work to a number, at least
2, of people to read. Discuss with them what they
understood from their reading 8Set your work
aside for some time, at least 3 days, so that you
can re-read it fresh. 9Use only the simplest
and most expressive verbs. A language IS really
the verb structure. 10Devote yourself to
developing the Executive Summary that is short,
about 75 words and contains all the
ideasincluding the CONLUSION of the main report.
Now lets look at Oral expression.