Book excerpt: Learn the tricks-of-the-trade of becoming a great technicalcommunicator Remember when you were an undergraduate and freshman compositionseemed so irrelevant to your life? After all, you were going toconquer the world with technological know-how. Your spellchecksoftware would handle the details. Now that you're a professional -pitching an idea, vying for a contract or grant, or presenting at ameeting - getting your point across effectively suddenly seemspretty essential for success, doesn't it? Fear not. This light-hearted text, brimming with proventechniques, good advice, and real-world examples that you caneasily apply to your own case, will turn you into an adeptcommunicator. Written expressly for technologists, this is asimple, concise, and practical guide to the communication dynamicsof writing, presentation delivery, and meeting interaction. Herbert Hirsch, in-demand consultant who developed thesetechniques for his own prolific engineering career, teaches you howto use "scripting" to plan for communication events. More than amere outline or storyboard, scripting is a powerful technique thatassists you in getting the right structure and content, in theproper order. Using scripting, you will master the fundamental principles ofcommunicating: How to grab the reader's or audience's attention from thestart How to maintain the connection while proceeding smoothly fromtopic to topic How to provide the substantiation for the points you made How to communicate with people from other groups, such asmarketers, investors, users, and others How to overcome such obstacles as fear, boredom, and aversionto your material Distilling the art of communication to its essence, EssentialCommunication Strategies empowers you to communicate withconfidence and authority in every situation, to every audience.