externalisation

Externalisation is the process of making tacit knowledge explicit. There are things you know, but may not know that you know, in the sense that you use them or act based upon them, but would not be able to verbalise them when asked. Often during a conversation, you might say something and then think, "I didn't know that", but of course you must have 'known' it in some sense – this is precisely tacit knowledge. Various techniques can help in this process of externalisation, for example, recording a conversation and then listening back focusing on the abstract nouns and property words used in it. Externalisation is one of the goals of knowledge elicitation.