Asking Questions  

Students learn by actively interacting with the material, and by interacting with each other along the way.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2004). Articles>Education>Instructional Design

Building Group Spirit  

Technical communication courses and training programs often benefit from peer review or group critique. To encourage learning, these activities require a constructive climate: Students must listen to one another, be receptive to feedback, and refrain from reproaches, interpretations, and judgments. Such a positive group spirit is not a given, especially if the school or corporate environment encourages competition more than collaboration. Teachers must foster an appropriate environment if they want their collaborative learning activities to be successful.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Choosing the Right Graph    

When it comes to graphing data, most professionals show little method or creativity. They typically limit themselves to a small repertoire of graph types and select from it on the basis of habit, if not sheer ease of production. Similarly, the many books on graphing devote much attention to graphical integrity and readability, but little or none to graph selection. We developed a methodology to help engineers, scientists, and managers choose the “right graph” on the basis of three criteria: the structure of the data set in terms of number and type of variables, the intended use of the graph, and the research question or intended message. The first and third criteria allow one to construct an effective two-entry selection table.

Doumont, Jean-luc and Philippe Vandenbroeck. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Charts and Graphs

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Slides Are Not All Evil    

This article first reviews three shortcomings in Tufte’s argument, then summarizes the booklet’s well-taken points, before offering guidelines for effective slides, no matter the tool. These guidelines and some of the analysis are based on more than 150 in-depth discussions of slides I have conducted with engineers, scientists, executives, and other professionals at workshops.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Technical Communication Online (2005). Design>Information Design>Presentations

Creating Effective Presentation Slides

The key methods you can employ to create effective presentation slides.

Doumont, Jean-luc. IEEE PCS (2008). Design>Presentations>Usability>Podcasts

Gentle Feedback That Encourages Learning  

Offers suggestions on how teachers of technical communication and reviewers of coworkers' documents can offer constructive criticism of others' writing.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing

Magical Numbers: The Seven-Plus-or-Minus-Two Myth      

George Miller’s “magical number seven, plus or minus two” is poorly understood and, consequently, blindly applied to professional communication. As an example, I have heard speakers explicitly allow themselves up to seven items of up to seven words on each visual aid, in addition to the title. Any such slide would fail any real-life test of effectiveness, such as briefly showing the slide while going on talking, then asking the audience what was on it. Such misconceptions endure.

Doumont, Jean-luc. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Articles>Human Computer Interaction

Proper Introductions  

Describes how teachers can begin their courses on a positive note by properly introducing students to the course material and to each other.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2002). Articles>Education

Running Group Critique  

Feedback is central to learning. Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes, but practice without feedback does not allow students or training participants to improve.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Setting the Stage  

Many teachers and instructors now recognize the importance of interaction. They know that their students learn from interacting with the material, with each other, and with them. Moving away from ex cathedra lecturing, instructors increasingly build their courses on hands-on practice, group exercises, and discussion sessions. Surprisingly, this change in methodology is not reflected in the classroom layout. Teachers often take their assigned rooms as they come, and while schools rush to fit classrooms with the latest technology, they seldom invest similar effort in designing more flexible or useful classroom layouts. By and large, the classic classroom is still setting the rules.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Interactive

Verbal Versus Visual: A Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures, Too    

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes—a saying debated by some but accepted pragmatically by most. Do we not all remember some little drawing or other that came in handy to clarify an otherwise plainly unintelligible discourse? Professionally, experienced technical communicators know the benefit of adding illustrations to the text of their technical publications. With increasingly better tools available for their production, pictures seem to have a bright future indeed.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric>Technical Illustration