The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence

The second reason why engaging in the complexities matters is that you can much better judge what to include. And whether you choose to include the complexity or not, your confidence in your explanation will be greater because you made that decision from a position of strength.

The first was for the issues I thought I understood. I also wrote how best I thought I could explain them. The next list was for elements of the story I was really struggling to understand, let alone explain. The third was, for the moment, blank. Here I would put other aspects of the story that I didn’t understand as I discovered

If someone is struggling to explain something, often not enough time has been given to working out what the essential detail is – and then making space for it and explaining why it’s essential.

Many times I’ve spent a long while really working to understand something and I end up not using it. It’s still worth doing. It’s played its part either way. It gives me confidence in what I do say.

ASK YOURSELF Have I answered the questions that people have? Remaining focused on keeping people’s attention

Is there a consistency of knowledge amongst those you’re addressing? Yes / No

To do that I started experimenting with what I call ‘joining phrases’ and ‘hooks’. Joining phrases take the person you’re addressing from one thought or element to another. They escort the viewer or reader from one element to the next without, we hope, a chance to consider tuning out. Here are some examples of joining phrases: That fact helps us un

Because if you’re efficient, you give people more in return for their time and they’re likely to be glad of that.

The second reason why engaging in the complexities matters is that you can much better judge what to include. And whether you choose to include the complexity or not, your confidence in your explanation will be greater because you made that decision from a position of strength.

A couple of years ago, the New York Times journalist Jane Bradley tweeted: ‘The best editors send you back your copy with 1,000 words lopped off and you don’t even notice them missing’.