Sign Posts

By Suzyika Nyimbili

Sourced from Google

Its 8th December, 2019. I am still in Budapest. One semester done! yay! Well, not really done as I still have papers to write and a meeting to discuss my thesis topic. Looking forward to finishing off all my papers and have a break from writing before the winter semester in Vienna starts. 

There is one thing that has stood out for me for this semester, 'Presenting oneself". Presenting ones ideas or whatever one would like to put across. Its a pretty hard task. Even harder in an environment where all everyone seems to be focusing on different topics and coming from different backgrounds.

In all this, I have come to learn to think more about the audience of my writing or presentation. As the presenter, its not enough to understand what you are presenting, its crucial that you present your work in a manner that helps your audience follow and understand. Of course your starting point should be making sure you understand your work and know the points you would like to put across.

In presenting ones work, "sign posts" are crucial, the audience should be guided. Something we talked about in our "Presenting Cultural Heritage Class. Not everyone might go the same way but your sign posts will help in giving direction. If your audience gets totally different ideas of what you are trying to communicate, its a sign to you and that maybe you need to rethink what or how you are communicating.  You might not necessarily be wrong but you might not  have put up your sign posts in the right points to guide your reader or audience.

It can be frustrating when you try to communicate something but it doesn't get to your audience. Try again, check your sign posts. How are you guiding your reader? Or maybe do you need to rethink your work?

I look forward to learning more and getting better at my writing in the coming months!