Remember when you were an undergraduate and freshman composition seemed so irrelevant to your life? After all, you were going to conquer the world with technological know-how. Your spellcheck software would handle the details. Now that you're a professional - pitching an idea, vying for a contract or grant, or presenting at a meeting - getting your point across effectively suddenly seems pretty essential for success, doesn't it?

Fear not. This light-hearted text, brimming with proven techniques, good advice, and real-world examples that you can easily apply to your own case, will turn you into an adept communicator. Written expressly for technologists, this is a simple, concise, and practical guide to the communication dynamics of writing, presentation delivery, and meeting interaction.

Herbert Hirsch, in-demand consultant who developed these techniques for his own prolific engineering career, teaches you how to use "scripting" to plan for communication events. More than a mere outline or storyboard, scripting is a powerful technique that assists you in getting the right structure and content, in the proper order.

Using scripting, you will master the fundamental principles of communicating:

• How to grab the reader's or audience's attention from the start
• How to maintain the connection while proceeding smoothly from topic to topic
• How to provide the substantiation for the points you made
• How to communicate with people from other groups, such as marketers, investors, users, and others
• How to overcome such obstacles as fear, boredom, and aversion to your material