General Skills

I think the 3 most important general skills you need for communication are;

Accuracy- this is an important feature when having communication skills because if you are not accurate in what you are saying then how are the audience supposed to know what you are talking about and how will they know you’re not telling a lie. They might have looked at the stats and statistics before you went there to deliver to them that speech so they will know what you should be saying so if you are not accurate they may not believe what you are saying.

Technique and engaging audience- there are many ways you can communicate through different techniques for example you may have to use pictures to help explain your point even more or have a video setup and just explain the video. But engaging the audience can be useful as well because this can make sure that the audience is listening because if you’ve just explained something and you don’t think somebody in the audience is listening you can see if they can repeat what you have just said.

Adapting content and style to suit audience needs- if you adapt the content to what the audience want they are going to be pleased because they know you are only talking about what they want to hear and not going off topic. If you adapt your style to what they want you might change your body language or your words for example at a university you would use big words.

Interpersonal Skills

Barriers- barriers can be important when communicating with other people because when speaking to others there could be problems with it for example the language barrier which can be a main issue this could result in learning new words, or getting in a translator. Another barrier could be that, that person you have worked with before may not like you in some way so therefore could be ignorant when talking to them.

Types of question- there are many different types of questions you can ask when communicating with others but most of the time you want your type of question to either relate to the user or relate to the subject. If you want it to relate to the user you ask about them and not something around them, but most of the time the topic counts because people want to be noticed when listening to your speech or they may pick up on mistakes.

Techniques and cues- once again with techniques they can be either with body language or voice communication because if your body language and your voice tone is down and bad you might not be seen as such a great speaker anymore. The cues you could use could be notes or cue cards just to remind you of what’s on topic so you don’t have to turn round all the time to read off a board.

Written Communication Skills

Structure- the structure of your speaking has to be good as well because if you don’t have a structured speech and it’s all over the place you will not have their attention because they will have lost track with you. Also if you have a structure you can also keep up with yourself so it will be a lot smoother when presenting.

Proofreading- if you proofread your work  you can make sure you get rid of your mistakes so when you are presenting you won’t make mistakes because you know everything is correct.

Spelling and grammar- this is a big factor in good communication skills because if you spell something incorrectly or say something wrong people will pick up on it and if you make mistakes people will pick up on it. When they pick up on it they will question you about it and why you have said/spelt it like that.