Here is a list Mike is working on about communication skills. Is there already a cirriculum for this?
Updated: 3/19/2009 @ 15:55

----------------------------------------------
Effective Communication Skills:

In general:
  Know your target audience
    Target the audience's skill/knowledge level
      Don't be too hard or too easy
  Define acryonyms 
    Unless very common to your field (and your audience would be familiar with)


Written Skills:
  Use the correct referencing style
    Each field/journal/class might have different formatting requirements/formats
  Use easy to read text
    Don't use excessivly large or small font
    Stay away from difficult to read fonts (very curly/cursive for example)
  Scientific papers are different from English/History/Sociology papers
    Maximum content with limited "fluff"
  Be descriptive of any problem/experiment/set-up
    Leave out details if they are irrelevent to the problem/experiment/set-up
  Spell check is great, but not perfect
    Proof read your own paper
      Have someone proof read the paper
  Outlining before writing the paper helps gets your thoughts onto the paper
    Sometimes writing the introduction last makes the intro more clear
  Leave time for revisions
  Label figures and include short, concise captions
    Every figure should be referenced/described in the text of the paper, no 'dangling' figures
    Be aware many/most papers are printed in black and white
      A graph with a blue and green line are almost indistinguishable if printed B/W
	Use dots/rectangles/triangles on lines if graphing
      Stay away from very light colors: yellow, red, light blue, pink as they are hard to see


Presentation Skills:
  Don't use pronouns
  Label figures
  Speak clearly and aununciate
    Large rooms can make it difficult for everyone to hear/understand
  Limit number of figures per slide
  Describe figures in detail
    "The red ball colides with the blue ball" not "That one hits that other one"
      People looking other places will still know what you were talking about
  Slides should contain maximum information content in minimum space
    Do not write paragraphs
    Use short sentances 
      Don't need to use complete sentances
  Use effects for emphasis only
    Slide transistions, spinning text, blinking text, bright backgrounds often distract the audience
  Use references in your slides, just like in a paper
  Pointer use:
    Highlight specific topics/points, don't have the pointer around
    Any playing with the pointer may distract the audience
  Have backups of your presentation
    On seperate media
    Don't rely on having the internet on the presentation computer