Reading

• Video: What College Major Should You Study to Do Quantum ComputingLinks to an external site. by Anastasia Marchenkova
• Video: Quantum ComputingLinks to an external site. by Domain of Science

In a university setting, we try to cover important topics in a comprehensive way, presenting students with everything they might need to know for any career in that area. But when we present information in a professional setting, it's often because someone will be using that information to make a specific decision or accomplish some specific task. Often, your goal when writing in a workplace is to be as brief as possible so the person has time to do their job, while also telling that person everything they need to know for their specific purpose, whether to make a decision, compl3t3 a task, or achieve a goal.

What can make writing and communicating at work so difficult is that those two equally important goals seem to get in the way of each other at every turn. Is this detail necessary, or just nice to know? Will I bore the readers who already know this information? If I leave it out, will I be missing important information?

The more you know about who you're communicating with and how they will be using the information you're presenting, the easier it is to decide which details are most important and how much detail is too much for this particular situation.

For example, even though quantum computing is a relatively new field, there's already so much to know about it, you could never include every detail in a presentation or document. Do you include the year quantum computers were first described? Do you include the biographies of its important figures? Do you include a basic definition of quantum computing? Those all seem like the kinds of details you would include in a college essay, but are they necessary for someone who's already interested in quantum computing and is simply trying to choose a major?

In the first video, the creator is focused on helping college students do (a)- specific kind of work: choose a major. They assume that their viewers either already know what quantum computing is, and they know there are many other resources available to explain the basic concepts the audience needs that info (as in the second video). You could add all that background information to the first video, but it might get in the way of its more focused purpose.

The second video is designed to be more introductory and is targeted at a much wider audience. It provides much more background and explanation of the basic concepts within quantum computing because the creators know their audience is interested in science generally. But the second video still doesn't contain every fact about quantum computing, however, and the creators still had to make some important decisions in order to be brief and not confuse their audience. More advanced concepts are left out and we focus on helping beginners understand basic concepts.

When you tailor information to a specific audience for a specific purpose, it might mean leaving out most of what you know about a topic, but by focusing on the most important and useful information, you can save your audience time that they can use to actually accomplish their goals. And that will win you more of the audience's attention and trust the next time they need information from you.

Questions:

1. What is a potential topic that you might creat(3) a presentation for in this project?
2. How might information on that topic be useful to STEM majors in college? What could a STEM major do with that information?
3. What questions do you think someone who is new to your topic might have? Are there any misconceptions or mistakes people are likely to make around your topic?
4. The first video is very brief and focused on its specific purpose, but there are usually opportunities to be even briefer. Is there anything you could cut or leave out of Anastasia's video without making it less useful to its audience?
5. The second video discusses how to build a quantum computer (starting at minute 2) but also makes the point that building a quantum computer is out of most people's reach. Why discuss the topic of building a quantum computer if most of your audience probably lacks the tools and expertise to do so?