While computers and other technical systems can have all of the information that a person making an ethical decision have, they will never possess pathos capabilities – the ability to understand how people feel about certain situations. Not all decisions can be made based purely upon fact. Dombrowski iterates that in looking at various decisions that were made, that “Repeatedly, decisions show that personal decision-making was much more important than impersonal procedural decision-making,” (331). We as a people have come to depend upon technology for risk evaluation, quick fact processing, but we have to remember that machines can not process emotion, and it is a necessary part of ethics. If we want to “treat others as we would like to be treated,” (which is probably the most basic universal ethical value, we have to evaluate as people how we would feel in a certain situation to decide how to deal with another person in any given instance.

Dombrowski states “Ethics…is problematic. It is not a fixed set of rules but an ongoing human activity that must continually be thrashed out for particular circumstances and people,” (337), which meshes with the ideas of Gough & Price who assert that, “Ethics is lived, not worn like a coat for convenience or appearance,” (327). Textbooks can not teach an ethical decision for a given situation or really give a specific process of how to achieve an ethical decision. Each situation is different, with some factors being more important than others. Certainly, in some cases legality is an important part of the ethical decision making processes, but more often than not doing what is best for the most people and being able to assess outcomes is the primary focus of ethical decision-making. I don’t know that ethics can be taught in a business writing class, or that it should be. Certainly, I see where it will be helpful in the real world, but personal ethics are much larger than just writing at a job. They have been developed for years and are different for each individual. Therefore, I don’t even know that an evaluation of how these books teach ethical decision making is even necessary, because honestly at this point, personal ethics would be almost impossible to change, and no process will ever be “right.”

When I went on a tour at Auburn while considering them as a choice for grad school, I was shown a room completely dedicated to understanding the ways in which people read their computer screens and the choices they make when using websites. It tracked eye movement (where the eyes looked first, how long they lingered on a specific area, etc) and also recorded the choices they made when following links. The students then utilized the information received to write usability reports and to better understand web design and hierarchical choices. As a required course in the curriculum, understanding how users work with a virtual space in order to understand how to design that space was obviously considered to be an important asset to a professional communicator.

If we look at the virtual space like we look at documents that we see everyday, it’s easy to understand how certain layouts, fonts, and spaces work to help define meaning and present to the audience the message we’re trying to portray. Salvo and Rosinski say, “Consider memos, parking tickets, wedding invitations, white papers, and reports for decision making: each of these genres carries part of the message in its visual design and physical presentation. The design indicates a range of possible responses to the text, and defines limits to how readers may choose to receive the text,” (107-108).

Virtual spaces have these same capabilities if we can understand how to utilize them. What we include on a website or leave out says something about our message and what we’re trying to say to our audience. Where we place certain things – under what headings and with what other links also shows how we want our audience to interpret our ideas and guides them through the message we’re trying to portray. And while we might be writing the content for websites and virtual spaces rather than designing them ourselves, it is our jobs as professional communicators to understand the rhetoric of space and classification so that our message may best be understood and to help guide the designers on where to place content as they make the virtual space more graphically/visually stimulating.

The 9^th edition of Technical Communications comprehensively covers the topics necessary to a student’s success in field of technical communication by giving them an accessible guide that leads them through the processes of writing documents that will be of importance in their professional careers.  Mike Markel writes in his preface that, “Technical communication remains a thorough, accessible introduction to planning, drafting, designing, revising, and testing technical documents,”  (v).

This edition included two new chapters and accompanying cases to reflect the developments in ways people communicate, specifically in highlighting the importance of the growth of Web 2.0 tools and how “technical communication in the academy is connected to technical communication in the workplace,” (v).  The two new chapters are “Writing Lab Reports” (Chapter 18) and “Connecting with the Public” (Chapter 22).  The first highlights a writing style most students use in their academic careers and how to use those skills in writing science and engineering articles.  The latter discusses “the importance of communicating with various stakeholders…(and) covers presentation applications (brochures, white papers, podcasts, newsletters…blogs, discussion boards, and wikis,” (v)  There is also an emphasis on a use of social media practices and how to use them effectively in technical communication.

Technical Communications 9^th edition offers a wider coverage of technical documents and of the issues that accompany them in an organized, understandable, and student-friendly manner.  This book also offers and accompanying web source, “TechComm Web” that offers resources such as sample documents, flash cards, and online tutorials.  This is a free service to enhance learning experience.

Writing Process

Being that a focus of this text is on the “planning, drafting, designing, revising, and testing technical documents,” (v), the entire book’s coverage of the writing process is comprehensive and definitely is a student friendly-friendly guide to understand the writing process.  This five-part text highlights the importance of the writing process in technical communication and gives equal weight to the development of text and graphics in documents and Web sites (xii).  Chapter 3 specifically focuses on “Writing Technical documents” and moves from planning, to drafting, to revising, to editing and proofreading.  There are step-by-step guidelines within each chapter to condense the ideas being discussed so that students may follow them within their writing process.  This text not only serves to help students understand the writing process, but how to implement it easily into their work.

Rhetoric and Persuasion

There are four major chapters in which theories of rhetoric and persuasion come through most strongly – “Understanding Ethical and Legal Considerations” (Chapter 2); “Analyzing Your Audience and Purpose” (Chapter 5); “Communicating Persuasively” (Chapter 8); and “Making Oral Presentations” (Chapter 21).

“Understanding Ethical and Legal Considerations” focuses on how to fulfill your job while also fulfilling ethical obligations to the public.  It also discusses how to communicate effectively with and appeal to cultures that have different ethical beliefs and laws.

“Analyzing Your Purpose and Audience” discusses how to “determine the important characteristics for your audience” and how to do so effectively.  It teaches how to utilize what one knows about an audience to communicate with them effectively and appeal to their interests.

“Communicating Persuasively” is one of the two chapters most focused on rhetoric.  It discusses not only understanding the goals of an audience but how to form a persuasive argument by using the evidence that will be most effective, appealing emotionally to the audience, considering opposing viewpoints, and how to present one’s self with as a professional.

“Making Oral Presentations” is the second chapter with a strong emphasis on the use of rhetoric and persuasion.  It focuses on preparing presentations by analyzing the situation, choosing effective language, using body and voice effectively, and how to use media effectively.

However, throughout all of the chapters there is a least some underlying theme on how to create documents by analyzing the situation and writing for a proper audience.

Style and Tone

This text does not have a chapter dedicated to style and tone.  However, throughout the text, there are sections about style and tone and how to use them appropriately within the writing processes of various documents.  For example, Chapter 17 has a “Guidelines” box on “Projecting an Appropriate Tone in a Progress or Status Report.”  All of chapters on how to write different types of documents offer options for styles depending on the genre, both in print text and electronic text.

Document Design

Technical Communication has a strong focus on document design that is present throughout the text.  Most obviously, “Designing Documents and Websites” (Chapter 11) first focuses on teaching design principles so that a student may understand them and then talking about various aspects of design such as “proximity, alignment, repetition, contrast, size, paper, bindings, accessing tools, layout, typography, titles, etc.,” (253).  However, each chapter offers ideas for designing the documents based upon genre, how to effectively use headings, understanding the elements of individual documents, and how to implement the use of images within document design.

Document Genres and Types of Writing

This text truly offers a comprehensive look at document genres and types of writing.  The following is a list of the different documents that are taught in this book:

•  technical documents
• letter, memos, and e-mails proposals
• job application materials informational reports
• recommendation reports
• definitions, descriptions, and instructions, oral presentations,
• web sites, blogs, and other online docs
• graphics and charts
• articles

Technical Communication not only helps the reader to understand the importance of these documents and their elements, but how to create them effectively as well as transfer them from the classroom to the professional world.  Again, the guidelines boxes and samples in each chapter help offer understanding of these various types of writing by giving the students tangible examples.

Visuals and Oral Communication

In Part 3 of this text, “Developing and Testing the Verbal and Visual Information” contains chapters on “Designing Documents and Web Sites” and “Creating Graphics.”  It also contains a chater focusing on “Reviewing, Evaluating, and Testing Documents and Web Sites.”  As a focus of this edition was on Web 2.0 and newer technologies, the implementation of using images, charts, and graphs is evident throughout the text.  The varying genres have discussions on images that would be useful in the context of writing and how to decide what visual elements would be most effective.  There is also a heavy emphasis  on visual elements in the chapter of “Making Oral Presentations.”  It discusses how to use slides effectively and what types of graphics are appropriate for varying speaking situations.

Research and Writing Technologies

Chapter 6 of Technical Communication is entitles “Researching Your Subject” and places a heavy emphasis on “choosing appropriate research methods, understanding the process, how to use various search tools, how to evaluate information, and how to conduct primary research,” (113).  However, many of the chapters talk about understanding audience or understanding how to review and evaluate and test various documents which all require some sort of research knowledge.

Throughout the text there are also examples of writing technologies from word processors to making graphics to using PowerPoint to writing blogs.  With the new emphasis on Web 2.0, web writing technologies are present throughout the book.

Recommendation

I would definitely recommend that this text be used in a Business or Technical Communications course.  It’s comprehensive nature would prepare students for any type of document that the might be asked to create in their academic or professional lives.  With extras like “Guidelines”, “Ethics Notes”, “Interactive Sample Documents”, “Tech Tips”, “Writer’s Checklists”, and “Cases” (real-world writing scenarious) in each chapter, students are able to understand the principles behind the writing of documents, see how they are effective, and given ways to easily implement the tools they read about into their own writing.  This text is extremely effective in presenting ways to take what students learn in the classroom and apply them to their careers in the real world.  Plus, it is completely accessible and understandable and can be used in the future to look back at as a guide for forming any type of document.

Markel, Mike. (2007). Technical Communication (9^th ed.). Bedford/St. Martin’s.

As a student in today’s society, we are somehow forced into this realm of choosing specializations, but also having general knowledge that expands well beyond what we consider to be a part of our field/curriculum/etc. We learn that the more specialized we are on a topic, the more we know about it, the higher we will be paid, we’ll be able to find jobs because companies are looking for specialists and will higher someone with more specialized knowledge than general knowledge because often times it will require less training. However, at the same time, we have to be marketable. We have to know how to write, edit, compile, design, layout, rhetorically analyze, project manage, utilize social media, promote, create, etc. We need to know how to use all of these technologies just so that companies know we have the knowledge should the situation ever arise to use such a program. So then, how do we as students and educators teach ourselves and others to be specialized in one area when spreading ourselves thin so that we can make sure we at least know a significant amount in all areas?

Sanchez and Lauer’s article really brought to my attention how much graphic work professional writer’s and editors do, and what surprised me the most is that those who were better visually were also better verbally. I have also thought if someone was better visually, generally their verbal was not as strong, and vice versa. However, this is not at all the case. Those students who are able to concisely and effectively present ideas visually are able to do the same verbally. As an English major, I honestly feel that at times because of page length requirements, we are not taught how to present our thoughts in the most effective way, often becoming redundant in our writing. At least when writing for a non-technically knowledgeable audience, simplicity is best, and I think Sanchez and Lauer make that point clear. I can honestly say that in my office, there is a significant difference in the works I produce versus what students in Public Relations and Advertising produce. Their posters are always much more visual and mine much more verbal. They have most definitely taught me how to cut down on my word counts and utilize image more, but I still struggle with creating documents appropriate for audiences without using my writing ability. However, if professional writers are expected to produce these documents, shouldn’t they be more of a focus in our curriculum, or do we have to figure out a career path early enough to decide?

If a student is specializing in say, technical writing for chemical engineering, it makes sense that he or she would probably not need as much general knowledge of social media or graphic design to be successful. An understanding of the verbage and processes used in the field would make him or her a much more viable candidate for the position. However, for a person going into let’s say, working in the communications department of a company, a more generalized knowledge would be looked at favorably. The more well-rounded the person, the better as he or she could hop into any roll immediately working in a fast paced environment. Does that mean then, that we should know exactly what we want to do to adjust our curriculum to suit our future career needs?

It almost seems as if curriculum plans need to be adjusted depending on students’ goals. For those looking for more specialized knowledge, take science courses, technical writing courses, etc. For those who need more generalized courses, take design classes – rhetoric is applied as heavily in these as it is in our PWE courses. This calls then, for a much more interdisciplinary approach to learning – an allowance for more course hours outside of one college within a university and the ability to choose a more appropriate course load depending on student needs. By keeping students grouped together and forcing this specialization vs. generalization conflict, it might be that departments are actually inhibiting the learning necessary for more successful futures.

Lauer, C. & Sanchez, C. A. (2011). “Visuospatial Thinking in the Professional Writing Classroom.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 25(2), 184–218.

I thought it was interesting that a large focus of the course actually had to be spent on proving to the students that racism still exists in the present day. I also was very intrigued by the idea that being white isn’t a race or considered being ethnic but rather the absence of being ethnic. Honestly looking at it from this perspective, I think this is probably how the majority of Euro-Americans see it because of the egocentrisms associated with our cultures. No matter how open and accepting we may be there is still somehow the idea of the “other.”

Haas suggests that using an approach that makes the relationship between the designer and user more of an equal partnership that works collaboratively to understand the culture of the user in order to provide a more usable piece of writing or technology.

She also suggests that, “his framework also pushes user-centered design theorists and practitioners to interrogate the extent to which all designers imagine users that mirror themselves—and calls into question the extent to which designers are capable of imagining users different from themselves. I posit that decolonial, critical race theories, methodologies, and pedagogies have the potential to help us imagine that we are capable and that doing so will generate responsible and productive ways of imagining a diversity of users of and participants in our discipline and other technical communication workplaces,” (304).

Although I do think that these suggestions rely on the audience still being primarily of one culture, going into a specific cultural community and understanding how they best learn and what methods they find most useful would be beneficial to the writer/creator and audience.

My problem with Bosley’s article, however, was that I don’t know if she truly offered sound ideas on how to change the way we work together in groups. She discussed that we need to talk about communication methods across cultures so that everyone understands what is happening in a group – when someone is trying to become a leader, when people are being silent out of respect, etc. However, this method needs to be implemented from a young age or by the time collaborative projects come around in higher education, too much time will be spent on teaching each other how to interact before even beginning the projects.

Fascinating, though, was the discussion of how Euro-North Americans place emphasis on the individual and individual achievement or success whereas other cultures focus more on the group and the success of the group as a whole. Working together collectively towards one common-goal project, it seems that people of other cultures would be better at working together because of their desire to succeed as a group rather than individually. However, I do wonder whether or not that ever becomes problematic in deciding leadership roles, offering new ideas, etc. If an individual wants to be successful, it seems fair to say that he or she would always offer ideas to ensure that success, whereas if someone is supporting the success of the group and a project is already underway, he or she might hold their idea back as to be supportive of the other members and not cause conflict within that group.

As we become more globalized, I do think it is important to implement pedagogical strategies that allow us to learn more collaborative work strategies. Just reading through this article, I recognized situations that I had seen or experienced. Without realizing it, I have been pre-disposed to thinking that each individual should offer ideas and work towards a goal and that when someone is quiet that they are just being lazy and not trying to put in the effort, which in turn, would cause me to not rank them as high if we were to rate them on their collaborative group effort. I would be interested in reading how international students coming to Euro-North American countries are prepared for these types of situations, if at all. Especially in the field of Professional Writing, communication styles need to be cohesive in some manner, and without working on collaborative projects with all cultural communication styles in schools, it’s inhibiting growth in the work place.

Mountaineer Week as over 100 events that take place throughout the week, and we highlight some of those events for press releases, news articles, etc.  What I have found is that I am using material about this event that I acquired from the articles written last year, e-mails from my co-chairs, emails from outside vendors, and information from outside vendors’ websites.  I am finding that I add very little original writing, but doing more copying and pasting to form an effective marketing document.

For the Hall of Fame Dinner, I have to write short biographies on each of the winners for the program.  Knowing none of these people, I am relying on information from their nomination forms, anything written about them from their time at WVU, and their answers from questionnaires I gave them.  Again, I find myself adding such little original writer, but doing more arranging of words that have already been written.

My role, then has become much less about writing and more about “’textual coordination’ (Slattery, 2005) [which] refers more narrowly and specifically to the selection of texts from a larger information environment and staging and manipulating them toward the production of a new text,” (318).

Because my office is small, and I am the known point person for these events, it is simple for everyone to send their changes and additions to me via email so that I can keep them in a folder for my use when putting the pieces of each writing together.  However, on a larger scale, I agree with Slattery’s view that the distribution of labor and the patterns of organization are important factors to study when evaluating writing practices.  In larger businesses, I can see this kind of communication coming in from all angles and for much more technical subjects to be an extremely complex environment in which to produce texts.

Slattery also voices concern over technical writers losing their expertise on a subject because of the collaborative nature of writing, but I also wonder how this whole “copy and paste” phenomenon is affecting the validity of authorship in documents.  I realize that for a technical manual, there might not be a name put on the front of the booklet, but for many technical writings an author is listed. Does having authorship matter to those who may have made a significant contribution to a piece of writing only to have their words made different because they were copied and pasted in a different sequence?

And how does this alter the argument about us calling ourselves “technical writers” vs. “technical communicators”?

Slattery, Shaun. “Undistributing Work Through Writing: How Technical Writers Manage Texts in Complex Information Environments.” Technical Communication Quarterly 16.3. (2007): 311-325. PDF.

Johnson-Eilola suggests that we need to start emphasizing the “communication” half of our title rather than the “technical” portion, which of course is strong rhetoric within itself (189).

By emphasizing the “technical,” we were suggesting that as communicators, we would present facts, numbers, and data, in a non-personal manner – not taking into consideration the needs of the audience, but rather just presenting facts and leaving it up to the audience to interpret. However, but emphasizing the “communicator,” we are able to bring more value to what we do. We are advocates for the audience and work to present facts to them in a way that they understand and need. Johnson-Eilola goes so far as to re-configure the understanding of what technical communicator do to calling it “symbolic-analytic work.”

He states “Symbolic-analytic workers rely on skills in abstraction, experimentation, collaboration, and system thinking to work with information across a variety of disciplines and markets…(it) mediates between the functional necessities of usability and efficiency while not losing sight of the larger rhetorical an social contexts in which users work an live,” (176).

He utilizes this rhetoric to present the value of what technical communicators do…to emphasize the complexity of a job that is often simplified because of the thought that anyone can write. It asserts that we have to think like technical workers in our methods, but know how to present it to various audiences through much more interpersonal contexts.

In her article, Lay agrees that “As the distinctions between science and rhetoric disappear, truth is defined as agreement within a community, not as discoverable and describable reality, technical communication then offers culturally based perceptions to the audience, rather than objective information and data.” (151)

While yes, the focus of her article was on the feminist theories behind technical writing and the emphasis that is placed on gender differences, she also changes the definition of what technical writers should be doing. Like Johnson-Eilola, she believes in the focus on audience understanding and that technical communicators will all communicate differently based upon who they are and who their audience is.

She suggest that “As feminists attach the last vestiges of scientific positivism within science and technology, technical communication must also let go of the ethos of the objective technical writer who simply transfers information and accept that writers’ values, backgrounds, and gender influence the communication produced.” (156)

With the new idea that technical writing was no longer all objective facts and rather a much more communicative process, it fits that the understanding that all writers are different and communicate differently. What was once basically a formulaic process is now a subjective process that involves evaluating audience needs, understanding technical processes, working with other writers, scientists to make products usable rather than bare interpretable to some audiences.

It is interesting reading now about a change that occurred 10-15 years ago. The ideas that all of the authors were writing about are the foundation of our education as future technical communicators now. I do wonder then, how the types of people working in this field have changed and how much less scientific or technical we have actually become.

Works Cited

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 176-192. Print.

Lay, Mary M. “Feminist Theory and The Redefinition of Technical Communication.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 146-159. Print.