Jean-luc Doumont

tel: +32 2 757 26 36
E-mail: jl@principiae.be
Web: http://www.principiae.be

Area of Expertise

Effective communication (oral presentations, scientific writing, graphical displays)

Biography

An engineer from the Louvain School of Engineering and PhD in applied physics from Stanford University, Jean-luc Doumont now devotes his time and energy to training engineers, scientists, business people, and other rational minds in effective communication, pedagogy, statistical thinking, and related themes. With his rational background, he approaches communication in an original, engineering- like way that contrasts sharply with the tradition of the field, rooted in the humanities. He is thus well received by students and professionals in search of a method they can apply with the same rigor they have come to value in every other aspect of their occupations. Articulate, entertaining, and thought-provoking, he is a popular invited speaker worldwide, in particular at international scientific conferences, research laboratories, and top-ranked universities. He is happy to deliver the lectures listed below in English, Spanish, French, or Dutch.

Lecture Title(s)

Making the most of your presentation
Strong oral presentation skills are a key to success for engineers, scientists, and other professionals, yet many speakers are at a loss to tackle the task. Systematic as they otherwise can be in their work, they go at it intuitively, sometimes haphazardly, with much good will but seldom good results. Based on Dr Doumont's book Trees, maps, and theorems about “effective communication for rational minds,” this lecture proposes a systematic way to prepare and deliver presentations. Among others, it covers structure, slides, and delivery, as well as stage fright.

Structuring your scientific paper
Papers are one of the few deliverables of the work of researchers. Well-designed, they efficiently allow each reader to learn only what he or she needs to. Poorly designed, by contrast, they confuse readers, fail to prompt decisions, or remain unread. Based on Dr Doumont's book Trees, maps, and theorems about “effective communication for rational minds,” the lecture shows how to structure scientific papers, theses, and technical reports effectively at all levels to get the readers' attention, facilitate navigation, and, in this way, get the message across optimally.

Getting messages across with graphs
Although widely used in research to analyze data and to communicate about them, graphical displays are still poorly mastered by researchers, who often use the wrong graphs or use them in the wrong way (and popular software does not exactly help). Based on Dr Doumont's book Trees, maps, and theorems about “effective communication for rational minds,” this session discusses how to choose the right graph for a given data set and a given research question, how to optimize the graph's construction to reveal the data, and finally how to phrase a useful caption.