Competencies

Competency 13: Communication

Photo of Dr. Mae Jemison

Dr. Mae Jemison, first black woman in space, gave a speech at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry encouraging girls to enter science and technology fields.

COMPETENCY STATEMENT

Each graduate of the Master of Library and Information Science program is able to…

…demonstrate oral and written communication skills necessary for professional collaboration and presentations

Page Contents

IMPORTANCE OF THE COMPETENCY TO ME

But above all let there be pleasure. Let there be textural delight, let there be silken words and flinty words and sodden speeches and soaking speeches and crackling utterance and utterance that quivers and wobbles like rennet. Let there be rapid firecracker phrases and language that oozes like a lake of lava. Words are your birthright. (Fry, 2008)

The fundamental purpose of scientific discourse is not the mere presentation of information and thought, but rather its actual communication. It does not matter how pleased an author might be to have converted all the right data into sentences and paragraphs; it matters only whether a large majority of the reading audience accurately perceives what the author had in mind. (Gopen & Swan, 1990)

As a data curator, I must be able to speak and write in clear, precise ways that are appropriate for my patrons and my colleagues. Communication will happen in email, in web pages, in dataset descriptions, in metadata, and in reports and journal articles. There will be teleconferences, audio-only conversations, and in-person meetings. If the users do not understand what information is available to them, they cannot use it. Good, effective scientific communication should be "clear, effective, and persuasive" (APA, 2010, p. 61). "In scientific writing, precision is the most important goal of language. If your writing does not communicate exactly what you did, then you have changed the work" (Alley, 1996, pp. 73-74).

Stephen Fry's approach to language, as demonstrated so eloquently above, is not entirely out of place in this context. In addition to transferring information, data curation communication will also include the goals of marketing, bargaining, and productive social interaction. Crisp technical language is necessary for the specifics of technology, but without a warm human aspect to communication, little is achieved amongst humans.

As a writer, I have to keep the audience in mind and attempt to match my words to their background so that they understand what I am trying to say. "Communication is a two-way process. It takes place only when the message you send has been received and understood by each individual at the other end" (Chan, 2005, p. 15). If I send an email to a tester in India and I use a colloquialism to give directions, I run the risk of obscuring my message.

The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide (2010) suggests that communication should:

Have "continuity in presentation of ideas" (p. 65)
Have a smoothness of expression "[so as not to abandon] an argument or theme prematurely" (p. 65)
Have a professional, non-combative tone, but also "aim for an interesting and compelling style and a tone that reflects your involvement with the problem" (p. 66)
Say only what needs to be said (p. 67)
Be precise (p. 68)
Have proper attribution (p. 69)

Presentations have slightly different needs: the language still needs to be crisp and professional, but it also has to be engaging. "The scientific talk, like the scientific paper, is part of the scientific communication process. The modern scientist must be able to deliver a well organized, well delivered scientific talk" (Schoberl & Toon, n.d.). The same is true of interacting in a meeting, and thoughts in both venues should be expressed concisely. Good graphics and data visualizations are effective at communicating and should be used at every opportunity.

No matter the medium, effective communication is as necessary to an information professional as the information being cared for.
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WHAT WORK PREPARED ME TO UNDERSTAND AND PERFORM THIS COMPETENCY?

When I was in high school, my counselor looked at my equal abilities in the arts and sciences and, rather helplessly, suggested that the only occupation that married that two would be "technical writer". (Why "librarian" was not suggested, I cannot imagine.) I was a technical writer, and editor, for about a year, and I wrote and published a manual.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center, I gave presentations at meetings on the Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) we were designing for Space Station Freedom.

At Mad River Community Hospital, I was a public relations assistant, which involved writing newsletters and creating television advertisements. I did some public speaking when I went on the local television news to promote new medical instruments the hospital had acquired.

At NASA's Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center (GDAAC), I wrote requirements analyses, design documents, and test plans and procedures. I attended the Tenth International Software Quality Week conference and presented a paper. Also at the GDAAC, I joined the Goddard Toastmasters Club to learn how to speak in public.

In my current job as Software Quality Assurance (SQA) manager at Cytobank, I communicate with the team of software testers in India through email, chat room, instant message, telephone, and teleconferencing, and it is even more important to keep colloquialisms and flowery, lengthy descriptions to a minimum. The India testers speak excellent English but when you are explaining a complex test plan across 8000 miles and 12 hours' time difference, precision is paramount. I telecommute myself, and so I communicate with my co-workers 35 miles south with the above mechanisms, as well as participating in in-person meetings one day a week and writing reports and documentation. I am well-versed in tailoring my message to the person I am talking to, and I am able to convey information in a formal, professional way as well as more relaxed, friendly chats.

In iSchool, all communication has been online. I have had the opportunity to write multiple papers in almost all of my classes. Almost all my classes have had discussion forums, where I communicated with my fellow students. There have been opportunities for online presentation and for attending live lectures, asking and answering questions at both. I worked on multiple group projects, honing my skills at communicating with others to accomplish complicated tasks together.

And in iSchool, I have learned even more about precision in communicating information. "Beginning Cataloging and Classification" (LIBR248) taught me about facet and hierarchical classification; "Vocabulary Design" (LIBR247) taught me how to think about the meaning of words and phrases and how they might be interpreted in different contexts by different audiences as well as the benefits of controlled vocabularies. "Seminar in Contemporary Issues: Metadata" (LIBR281) and "Seminar in Archives and Records Management: Electronic Records" (LIBR284) gave me deeper views into metadata and metadata standards. "Information Technology Tools and Applications: Information Visualization" (LIBR246) is giving me a new language to communicate with, the language of data visualization. In "Resources and Information Services in the Disciplines and Professions: Maps and Geographic Information Systems" (LIBR220) and "Resources and Information Services in the Disciplines and Professions: Science and Technology" (LIBR220) I learned how to communicate with maps.

In addition, I have experience with a different type of communication. I was published in, and editor for, my high school's art/literary magazine. In the past few years, I have taken up fiction writing again, and I enjoy the opportunity to work with language in a very different manner than the more structured style necessary for technical communication. I have had non-fiction, personal essays published in several publications. Being able to play with words in an environment where nothing is at stake (my writing group) is very freeing, and it helps me think more about the words that I use in my professional life.
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EVIDENCE

The evidence I am submitting is exclusively for the oral presentation portion of this competency. The essays for these competencies, and the many papers I have presented as evidence elsewhere, will hopefully suffice for proof that I have a proficient command of written communication.

Paper presented at a conference: "The Challenge of Testing Innovative Science Software on a Rapidly Evolving Production Platform"

While working at NASA's GDAAC, I presented a paper at Software Research Institute's Tenth International Software Quality Week conference. In the paper I described the project I was working on, the software testing challenges we were facing, and how we were solving them. It was a growth experience of presenting in front of a larger group of strangers than I had faced before. If I had it to do over, I would work with a critique I was given after the presentation: I would spend less time describing the systems we were testing and more time on the solutions. I would also discuss the testing theories that our solutions relied upon, and I would add some quantitative data to show how our methods were improving the test process and, subsequently, the quality of the software.

Presentation: "What Resources Do Scientists Use in Research?"

For an assignment in LIBR220 (Science and Technology), I gave a PechaKucha-style presentation about two scientists I interviewed to learn more about what references and resources "real-life" scientists use in their work. This was an opportunity to work on crafting presentation slides as well as giving a talk. I do not have access to the presentation recording, so I am submitting the slides and notes that I used.

Elluminate presentation: "Horace Greeley Map"
(presentation is from 1:35:30 to 1:49:00)
(link will download .jar file; double-click to download Elluminate and run)
This presentation begins as a primarily visual experience with audio as backup; when the live map demonstration fails, it becomes almost exclusively audio.

In Competency 11, I mentioned the travelogue Google Map that I made for Horace Greeley's book An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in 1859. Here I submit the presentation that I gave to the class explaining what my project was. I also attempted a demonstration of the Google Map, but the Elluminate software did not cooperate, so I had an opportunity to accept technical difficulties and forge ahead, modifying my presentation to account for the lack of the demo.

Presentation: "Historic Sea Ice Data: The Bark Wolga in May, 1851″
(presentation is from 5:20 to 17:00; commentary on presentation from 17:00 to 21:40)
(link will download .jar file; double-click to download Elluminate and run)

One of the projects I am most proud of from my time at iSchool is the sea ice project I created in LIBR220 (Science and Technology). At the end of the class, I was able to present my project in Elluminate. This was an opportunity to practice communicating information to an audience that was not familiar with the technical details of my work. Putting together and delivering this presentation was one of the highlights of working for my MLIS.
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CONCLUSION

Most of my communication with other people, whether professional, at school, or in my personal life, is written. I am extremely comfortable with the various forms this communication can take. I continue to learn and grow at communicating in person, in voice, and in formal presentations. Now that I am graduating, I will probably join a Toastmasters Club again. Improving my writing skills will be a lifelong goal, as will learning how to communicate via visualization. These skills will be the basis of all my interaction with patrons as a data curator.
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REFERENCES

Alley, M. (1996). The craft of scientific writing (3rd ed.) [Kindle edition]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Chan, J. F. (2005). E-mail: A write it well guide: How to write and manage e-mail in the workplace. Oakland, CA: Write It Well

Choporis, S. (2015, April 1). [Online image of Dr. Mae Jemison giving a speech.] Retrieved from http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/dr-mae-jemison-promotes-stem-for-womens-history-month/

Davis, J. L., Ziskin, D., & Zhou, B. (1997, May). The challenge of testing innovative science software on a rapidly evolving production platform. In Conference Procedings: Tenth International Software Quality Week 1997. San Francisco, CA: Software Research Institute.

Fry, S. (2008, November 4). Don't mind your language… Retrieved from http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language…/

Gopen, G. D., & Swan, J. A. (1990). The science of scientific writing. Retrieved from http://engineering.missouri.edu/civil/files/science-of-writing.pdf

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). (2010). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Schoberl, M., & Toon, B. (n.d.). Ten secrets to giving a good scientific talk. Retrieved from http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/agu/scientific_talk.html

Last updated: Friday, April 17, 2015