Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 964, Using Infographics.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 964.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode we're going to hear a dialogue between Mario and and Cleo about using visuals to convey or give people information.
Let's get started.
That's a lot of text in your proposal.
It's a complex proposal with a lot of moving parts.
I can't simplify it without leaving out essentials.
What you need are infographics.
This is a serious business proposal.
I want people to take it seriously and I don't want them to get distracted by a lot of color pictures.
That's precisely why you have to use infographics.
Look at these reports and proposals I've received in the past year.
Everybody is communicating complex sets of information and statistics in maps and graphics.
You can even show hierarchies and networks easily using infographics.
Lucky for you, I know an expert.
Who?
Someone who is enormously talented but underappreciated.
I don't think I know anyone like that.
Hmm.
Our dialogue begins with Mario saying to Cleo, That's a lot of text in your proposal.
Text T-E-X-T here means written words, not images, not photos, not pictures, just the actual words of whatever you're writing.
Mario says there's a lot of text in your proposal.
A proposal is when you are trying to get someone to approve of your ideas to do something.
Mario says, are you sure people are going to take the time to read all of that?
To take the time to do something is to spend the time to do something so that you do it correctly, or you do it properly, or you do it thoroughly completely.
Clio says it's a complex proposal with a lot of moving parts.
Complex, C-O-M-P-L-E-X, means complicated, difficult to understand, not easy to follow.
Moving parts refers to the different parts of any sort of activity.
Parts here refers to the different things that are required for this particular activity to take place or to be successful.
It's a very general term used to describe different aspects or different areas of a project.
If you have a lot of moving parts, you have a lot of things that change and that change other things in your project.
If this person does their job well, then that helps the other person.
Or if this happens, then that will mean something else will happen.
All of these things are related to each other and you have to try to coordinate them, to get them to work together.
What Clio is saying is that it's a very complicated proposal.
You'll hear that expression a lot of moving parts when someone is talking about something that is very complicated.
Clio says, I can't simplify it without leaving out essentials.
To simplify S-I-M-P-L-I-F-Y means to make something simpler, make something easier.
Essentials E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L-S are things that are necessary for a certain activity or project, things that you absolutely must have.
Food and water are essential if you are going to live.
So is oxygen.
So are a lot of other things.
These are essentials.
Cleo says that she doesn't want to leave out or not include essentials in her proposal.
That's why it's so complicated.
Mario says, what you need are infographics.
An infographic, I-N-F-O-G-R-A-P-H-I-C says, is a graphic or visual representation of information.
It may be representing things as a process.
It may be showing the different parts of something.
All of those would be considered infographics.
The word infographics comes from information and graphics. which are visuals.
So an infographic is a visual that helps people understand complicated information.
Mario says you can encapsulate and communicate a lot of information by using visuals.
To encapsulate, E-N-C-A-P-S-U-L-A-T-E, means to summarize, to include.
To encapsulate would be to give someone a brief version of the information, but in a way that communicates or gets them all of the information they need to understand it.
Visuals, V-I-S-U-A-L-S, are things that you can see such as an image or a photograph or a graphic.
Usually when you see the word visuals, someone is using that to distinguish it from text.
The word text, as we pointed out, refers to words.
Visuals refers to everything else really, that you would look at on a piece of paper that would be communicating information to you.
Cleo says this is a serious business proposal.
I want people to take it seriously.
To take it seriously means to consider it in a serious way.
She says D-I-S-T-R-A-C-T-E-D.
Buy something means to have your attention taken away from an important thing because something else, either important or interesting, is happening.
Many people nowadays get distracted by email at work.
They're working on a project and they have their email program open on their computer and they hear a new message come in.
And they go, oh, I have to go check that message right away.
And that message distracts them from their real work, their important work, which is what they were doing before.
They got distracted.
Cleo thinks that putting in infographics will distract the readers of her proposal.
She uses the term a lot of color pictures, which is meant to indicate that it might look nice, but it's not very important or doesn't convey or give any important information.
Mario says that's precisely why you have to use infographics.
Look at these reports and proposals I've received in the past year.
Everybody is communicating complex sets of information and statistics in maps and graphics.
Statistics refers to information in a numerical form.
In everyday English, it could be something as simple as the percentage of people in a certain category, or something much more complicated.
Mario says that people are...
Communicating or trying to give information about very complicated sets of information in maps and graphics.
A map is, of course, a drawing that shows you where something is.
Graphics is another word for images or visuals.
Mario says, you can even show hierarchies and networks easily using infographics.
A hierarchy H-I-E-R-A-R-C-H-Y, in this case is a chart that shows the relationships among different people in a group.
You might have a chart or graphic that shows the president on the top and then the vice presidents below him, and then the managers below the vice presidents, and so forth.
That would show the hierarchy, the ranking of the people in that company.
Who's the most powerful?
Who's the second most powerful?
And so forth.
Mario says you can show hierarchies and networks.
Networks N-E-T-W-O-R-K-S are systems of people or things, especially when we're talking about computers that are connected and related to each other.
Cleo says, I didn't know it could be done in such a professional way.
But I don't know the first thing about creating infographics.
The expression to not know the first thing about something means you are completely unfamiliar with something.
You don't have any idea about how to do this.
Mario says, lucky for you, I know an expert.
Cleo says, who?
Mario says, someone who is enormously talented but underappreciated.
To be enormously talented means to be very talented, to have a lot of expertise in something.
To be appreciated means that people know that you do a good job and they understand that and recognize that.
To be underappreciated means that people don't completely or fully recognize all that you do.
You don't receive enough credit for what you do.
Cleo says, Obviously, Mario is not happy at the end of the dialogue.
He says, Of course, Mario is the person that Mario is talking about.
He's the person who is enormously talented when it comes to or related to creating infographics.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
That's a lot of text in your proposal.
Are you sure people are going to take the time to read all of that?
It's a complex proposal with a lot of moving parts.
I can simplify it without leaving out essentials.
What you need are infographics.
You can encapsulate and communicate a lot of information by using visuals.
This is a serious business proposal.
I want people to take it seriously and I don't want them to get distracted by a lot of color pictures.
That's precisely why you have to use infographics.
Look at these reports and proposals I've received in the past year.
Everybody is communicating complex sets of information and statistics in maps and graphics.
You can even show hierarchies and networks easily using infographics.
I didn't know it could be done in such a professional way.
But I don't know the first thing about creating infographics.
Lucky for you, I know an expert.
Who?
Someone who is enormously talented, but underappreciated.
I don't think I know anyone like that.
Hmm.
Our scripts are essential to our success here on ESL Podcast, and they are written by our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
