PREFACE

The learning and teaching of communications has generally been limited to the spoken and the written skills—presentations, group discussions, writing of letters, reports, etc. For students enrolled in professional courses, it extends to document writing or maybe, project writing. Experience, however, shows that a good communicator has more than just these skill sets. It is primarily an attitude, a willingness to communicate, share one's ideas and information that makes one a good communicator. Language and the knowledge of the various formalities associated with speaking and writing do matter. However, given the right attitudinal input, communication becomes much easier and one emerges as an effective communicator.

This book discusses additionally these attitudinal factors that make one a good communicator and links them up with the skill sets that enable effective communication. It speaks of the writing and the speaking skills in the context of creativity, negotiation, interpersonal skills and problem solving. Specifically, the book aims at developing the communication skills of Engineering and other professional students. For this target group, good communication skills are necessary for recruitment and to enhance their opportunity for further growth in the profession.

The book attempts to locate the common communication needs of this group in different situations and to guide and equip the readers and learners to fulfill them appropriately. The book follows a skill-based approach. It isolates the skill sets required in different communicative situations, gives the students a comprehensive view of the requirements and finally reinforces them further through exercises and activities.

Communication Skills for Engineers (CSE) thus is a comprehensive book that focuses on the communication needs of users from the Engineering and other professional areas. It does not look at “communications”—fluency in speaking and writing—in isolation but discusses the whole attitudinal framework that enables effective and purposeful exchange of information. It aims at enabling students to identify and develop skill sets necessary to succeed in their profession.

This second edition of CSE covers some additional topics that include a discussion of grammar dynamics and activities thereof; information technology (IT) and communication; the nitty-gritty of e-mail writing, interview skills; designing SOPs, a CV and Resumé writing, and aspects of improving reading skills among others. This has been done to cater to a wider range of felt needs among Engineering students and other professional students. To accommodate these additions, some of the earlier chapters have been collated appropriately. In this process, we have tried our best to keep the book's main points as well as its pedagogy intact.

We hope that the second edition of CSE will continue to help the students, teachers and trainers from Engineering and other professional streams.

Acknowledgements

This book is a combined effort of many minds. It was conceived when we were teaching MBA, and MCA students and took shape in the course of our lectures to B.Tech., B.E., B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. graduates. However, many influences have gone into its making. We would specially like to thank the following people:

• Our teacher, Prof. N. Krishnaswamy, for his encouraging influence and useful advice. He was instrumental in planting the idea of this book in our minds.
• Late Prof. G. V. Raj for his valuable role in giving us the English language teaching (ELT) orientation in our early days of teaching.
• Our students from Osmania University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technical University (JNTU) and University of Hyderabad, whose responses and reactions helped to shape the contents of the book in a big way.
• Prof. Tutun Mukherjee for her timely appreciation and for her assessment of our book proposal.
• Dear friends like Vijaya, Joy, Seetha and Srinivas for goading us to persevere in our efforts and giving valuable suggestions and ideas.
• K. Srinivas, the then commissioning editor of Pearson Education who is now the publishing manager, for his relevant, practical and timely suggestions in the formative stages of the book.
• Brig. Sambhi, former Principal of Karshak Engineering College, for his creative ideas and suggestions.
• Our dear daughter, Shivani, for her growing understanding, and support and for having put up with our preoccupied minds during the long months of writing.

Dr Sunita Mishra

Prof. C. Muralikrishna