| > "Review of Test Data Indicates Conservatism for Tile Penetration." The title has nothing to do with power point. This is no different from how academics title papers. The use of unnecessarily big words & passive tenses (rather than active) increases with level of schooling. "Don't bury the lede" - Journalists and writers are taught this. It means, save readers some mental clock cycles. Pore through your own news and figure out the most important fact. Then put it in the title and/or on top. Highly schooled, intelligent and "honest" people don't do this. When journalists over simplify or make logic leaps in their writing, we call it clickbait. We also prefer the use of the words MAY, and COULD (probability isn't intuitive to most people) - which allows people to ignore the information. Successful salesy types are intentional about their use of words. They'll use active phrases, avoid ambiguous words, use words that denote certainty to force action in choice areas, and vagueries to hide or down play others. The officials were surely served papers before or after the meeting and made their decision despite the slideshow. Summary: Engineers need copyrighting and sales training as well. |
Waaait. Your comment essentially established two things: that journalists receive training on how to write properly, and that successful salesy type know how to bullshit their audience to get what their want. I think the conclusion doesn't follow.
Observe that journalists universally don't apply their writing training - in fact, modern news reporting is one of the worst kind of writing out there, with the lede buried under 30 meters of gravel, and spread on a hectare of land (we call it clickbait only when headline is manipulative). So this shows your training matters little if incentives on the job are in total opposition to it.
As for the sales angle, commercial copywriting isn't exactly a paragon of clarity either. Effectiveness in sales isn't measured in how clearly you communicated costs and benefits, but how excitingly you communicated the benefits, and how effectively you've hidden the drawbacks. Engineering communication shouldn't be manipulative like this.
The way I see it, many engineers could use some communication training, but it should be focused at presenting things clearly and truthfully, and on effectively ELI5-ing things to managers. But beyond that, incentives within organization needs to be adjusted, because it's hard to get an engineer to explain things clearly when their job depends on them not doing it.