Translation is not the removal of technical substance. It is the work of learning an unfamiliar professional discourse, identifying what different audiences need, and preserving accuracy while making specialized information usable.
The communication challenge
During a Marketing and Communications internship at NextEnergy, I worked in an unfamiliar technical environment shaped by energy, engineering, policy, funding, and public communication. The challenge was to move from dense expert explanations to concise one-page materials without treating public audiences as though they needed the substance simplified away.
The work required attention to what specialists considered essential, what outside readers would need explained, and how different public audiences might use the same information.
Audiences and inquiry
I interviewed managers, directors, and technical specialists to learn the organization’s language, values, relationships, and ways of thinking. Those conversations were not simply a method for collecting facts. They were how I learned to recognize the context surrounding the information and identify which details carried the most meaning.
The resulting communication was designed with municipalities, funders, elected officials, and non-specialist readers in mind.
What I did
- Prepared for and conducted interviews with subject-matter experts and organizational leaders.
- Identified audience needs, technical context, key claims, and terms requiring explanation.
- Synthesized specialized energy and engineering information into concise public-facing language.
- Drafted and revised audience-specific one-page communication materials.
- Protected employer-confidential information throughout the research, writing, and review process.
What the work produced
The internship produced completed one-page communication materials intended for multiple public audiences. It also established a professional method I can carry forward: enter the discourse carefully, interview before assuming, identify the audience’s actual question, preserve the technical stakes, and revise toward public usability.
I do not claim outcomes or uses that have not been documented. This case study therefore describes the communication problem, process, audiences, and completed work—not confidential company content or unverified organizational results.
Confidentiality boundary
No NextEnergy document, internal excerpt, proprietary language, or employer-owned visual appears here. The description is limited to the kinds of work I performed and the professional capacities the internship developed. A before-and-after example would be added only with explicit permission and a separate confidentiality review.
Capabilities demonstrated
- Technical-to-public knowledge translation
- Subject-matter expert interviewing
- Qualitative inquiry and synthesis
- Audience analysis and rhetorical adaptation
- Plain-language drafting and revision
- Confidentiality-aware professional communication