ECEN 1515 Professional and Technical Oral Communication for Engineers

1. ECEN 1515Professional and Technical Oral Communication for Engineers Session Four Introduction, Conclusion, Pronunciation and Outline

2. Objectives • Structure of Introduction and Conclusion • Pronunciation • Outline of Presentation

3. Introduction Introduction • Greet the audience • Introduce yourself • Give the title of your presentation • Provide background information of your topic • E.g. Statistics / Interesting findings • State the focus of your presentation • Illustrate the structure of your presentation • Inform the audience when they may ask questions (optional)

4. Conclusion Conclusion • Summarise the main findings • Make recommendations (if any) • Give a complimentary closing • “that’s the end of my presentation” • Thank the audience • Invite questions

5. Presentation Practice • Prepare and give the introduction and conclusion to presentations a and b then to your own pair presentation that you did in Session two.

6. Learning IPA • Useful Online Resources • http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# (American Pronunciation) • http://caes.hku.hk/ipast/

7. Challenge yourself • Can you pronounce the following words correctly by reading the phonetic transcription? • considerate, imitate, receipt, pronunciation, serious, informative, quintessential, gynecologist, osteoporosis, debut, finale, schizophrenia

8. Challenge yourself Source: http://dictionary.cambridge.org

9. Rule-Governed Pronunciation [Past-Tense (-ed)] • State, rent, disappoint, suspect, duplicate [verbs end with / / sound] • Raid, Trade, Fade [verbs end with / / sound] • How would you pronounce their past tense (-ed) form?

10. Rule-Governed Pronunciation [Past-Tense (-ed)] • How do you say the past tense form of the following verbs? • Celebrate, play, love, investigate, found, rejuvenate, rain

11. Pausing • In written English, we use punctuation to show where the pauses in the sentences should be. When we speak English, our listeners don’t see the punctuation, but we don’t generally run all the words together in a stream of equally-emphasized words either. We group words by their meaning, and pause between them. This allows us to speak in phrases or sense groups, and to pause just after important information that we emphasize.

12. Say IT! Try this monologue and pay attention to the tone (rising / falling) before pausing: • Finally, // each time you prepare the solution,  // you should take into account  / the temperature of the liquids.  // Don’t mix these two liquids together / unless they have the same temperature:  // room temperature. // After they reach the same temperature,  // then you can mix them together / and get the starting temperature.

13. Outline of your Presentation • Drafting an outline is important as this can help structure your presentation in a logical manner • Look at the following three examples of outline and identify the differences

14. Outline 1 Title: Bridges1st part: design of the bridge2nd part: construction of the bridge3rd part: materials used4th part: efficient use of resources5th part: case studyobjective: meet our society and sustainability

15. Outline 2 Introduction • The presentation will begin with a description of nowadays engineering requirement of bridges. Main body • Different designs of modern bridges are discussed. Example will be analyzed. (e.g. footbridge, flyovers) • Common construction process will be introduced. (e.g. concrete, steel, rock) • The properties of some construction materials will be introduced. • Efficient use of resources: How to save money • amount of material used • labour force distribution • saving water and electricity in a construction site Conclusion

16. Outline 3 Introduction • The presentation will begin with a description of nowadays engineering requirement of bridges.

17. Outline 3 Main body • Different designs of modern bridges are discussed. Footbridges and flyovers will be analyzed. • Ting Kau Bridge is introduced as example. • location • length • number of lanes • The construction process will be introduced. • foundation • column • section of bridge deck • slant steel cable • connecting the sections • finishing of the road surface

18. Outline 3 Main body • The properties of some construction materials will be introduced. • concrete (strength of different grading, hardening date, ingredient, durability) • steel (pre-stressing, reinforcing the concrete) • Efficient use of resources: How to save money • amount of material used • calculate the position of force supporting • efficient use of protective layer • decide density of bars used • labour force distribution • planning of work schedule • estimate work load • saving water and electricity in a construction site

19. Outline 3 Conclusion • summarize the engineering knowledge discussed • forecast the design of bridges in future

20. Homework • Submit a detailed and specific outline of your group presentation to me by email at least 24 hours before next lesson.