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lectures > lectures autumn 2001

Writing for readers:Improving technical communication

Speaker: Dr. Noel Williams
20th October 2001

Have you ever wondered who writes technical communications, such as instruction books, and why they are so difficult to follow? Dr. Williams will examine some of the main barriers to effective technical communication and ways of removing, or at least reducing them. He will focus specifically on communication directed at lay users, as this is both a growth industry and a source of perpetual difficulty. The main focus will be on paper documents, though he will make small excursions into electronic documents as well.

Noel Williams took a 1st in English at King's, Cambridge and a Ph. D at Sheffield University. Using computational analysis to study the semantics of words lacking denotation ('supernatural names'), he developed an interest in all things relating to the then-emerging computer technologies and in human communication. Currently he is Reader in Communications at Hallam with research and publications in many fields (intelligent style-checking, the training of writers, voice recognition, artificial intelligence.). In 1988 he was a founder member of the UK Computers and Writing Society and is the author or editor of several books in this field (e.g.The Computer, the Writer and the Learner, Springer Verlag, 1992). He also publishes non-academic pieces in military history, and the occasional poem.