Characterizing Workplace Communication
Baden and Borth
Technical Communication is a broad field that touches nearly every profession because it connects ideas, people and there activities. It defines, describes and directs activities in business and industry, government and research institution, hospital and farms. It's a technology that helps everyone from computer engineers to commercial fishers.
Importance of Effective Communication
Technical communicators and technical experts are two broad categories of professionals that are responsible for technical documents and oral presentations. Technical communicators design, develop, and produce documents, presentations and visuals. They support the products and service of organizations. Technical experts are professionals that communicate effectively. They see reading, writing, listening and speaking, and viewing and designing visuals as a part of their daily job.
Surveys have shown that speaking and writing skills are important to the success of technical professionals. Many surveys have shown, you will gain advantages in managing projects and working with others if you can write and speak well.
Defining Technical Communication
Technical communication has shown to be rhetorical because it is the art and craft of communicating technical information appropriately and persuasively to intended audiences. There are many different rhetorical elements in characterizing technical communication. Content provides appropriate source citations and documentation as necessary and presents accurate and appropriate technical information adjusted to the audience. Audiences usually have different needs and constraints, one needs to recognize the multiple interpretations of documents, oral presentations and visuals. Context of an element of technical communications refers to how well the identified task is fulfilled with information and how well the reader, listener or viewer interprets the purpose. The purpose is a way to inform and persuade the intended audience; identifying the position being taken. Organization helps make the information logical, accessible and retrievable so that it is easy to comprehend, navigate and recall. The rhetorical elements are the factors that experienced communicators typically consider when planning, drafting and revising documents, oral presentations, and visuals. A document and the rhetorical situation in which it is created and used constitutes a genre. Information and situations are dynamic they change periodically in response to particular circumstances, which shows that each one affects the other.
Technology and Ethics in Technical Communication
Interpretation is not only influenced by genres and communities but it is also influenced by the technology you use. Computer-mediated communication is a process of human communication via computers it allows a way for people to communicated, interact, retrieve and interpret information. There are several factors that influence technology; sustaining reading of lengthy text, keeping track of your place when reading, managing multiple windows, reviewing information, highlighting and taking notes and checking other places to receive information and returning to your original place. Technology also provides privacy, virtually all electronic communication can be monitored in the workplace. So take caution while emailing and messaging. Immediacy gives anyone using technology the choice to when they want to respond to a chat room message or email. Permanency means that anything that you access is backed up and recorded and can be accessed at anytime. Ethics means to keep in mind all of the different audiences that you are presenting and writing to, not everyone will have the same outlook as you.
Constraints that Communicators Encounter
Time Constraints
- You will often work within time limits that seem unreasonable. Keep in mind how much time you need to devote to each project.
- Usually the document presentation or visual is predetermined. You will need to narrow your subject, select content and determine limitations.
- You will need to make decisions about the technical level,complexity and organization to respond to the needs of readers or listeners. Not everyone in the audience will have the same education, experience and expectations.
- When you work independently you will do the exploring, planning, editing and publishing for a document. However when you work collaboratively you will share the responsibilities.
- In collecting data you will often have to work with new equipment and unfamiliar processes. When deadlines become tight don't hesitate to make arrangements to talk to other people.
- You will face constraints such as needing to access appropriate technology and the capability to use it. If you are unfamiliar with the technology you will be at a disadvantage. You can also have limited access to electronic tools when technical support for the hardware and software.
- Noise from context or environment occurs when physical reception is garbled or masked.
- Noise from any of the communicators like writers, speakers, readers listeners and viewers.
- Noise embedded in information and in its delivery. Information can be incomplete, inaccurate, illogical, unsupported and inflammatory which causes interference in understanding.
24 comments:
I thought defining Technical Communication right away helped me have a better understanding what it was with examples. It says that writing and speaking are two important aspects in technical jobs and I know if I didn't like doing either I wouldn't be in the field I am. With wanting to be a dietician I know I need to be able to talk to clients and other professionals in the field and have accurate information. I thought the text was helpful when it talked about the constraints the communicator encounter. I feel like in many jobs you need to adjust how you talk to someone depending on how old they are or what profession they have. I know in my speech class when we had to pick a persuassive topic I chose why people shouldn't drink pop. I felt like I had the audiences attention because they could relate to the topic.
I think that so much focus has been put on technical communication in the workplace, that we are forgetting we use it every day as students as well. I am grateful that I am exposed to the many areas of technical communication in all my classes, as it prepares me to utilize this important field when I finally enter the work force. As students, we are encouraged to make all our papers and presentations original and informative. Many times we must present these projects to individuals outside our own areas of study. For example, I am a dietetics major, but not everyone cares as much about nutrition and fitness as I do. When giving a presentation about my interests, I need to make sure I include information that will pertain to the lives of and be clear to all students. The information in this chapter not only defines our lives after graduation, but also defines the information needed to be a student in today’s world.
Technical communication is something we can all relate to and I think that the first chapter does a good job helping us see that. I agree that there was a lot of emphasis on technical communication in the workplace. While we’re not applying it to workplace situations yet, it’s important to understand that we’re using the same concepts in our academic lives. I think that the constraints section is really helpful because as students, we need to be aware of them when preparing presentations. Personally, speech was probably the class where this was of most importance. There were always time and audience constraints to take into consideration.
Technical communication is great in that it helps and shows up in so many ways in all of our fields. In my field of physical therapy I need to be able to research, writing everything I do so people can understand and comprehend it, along with being able to communicate with all my clients whose age ranges from pediatrics to the elderly. Learning to speak and write are tools that are used non stop. So refining what we already know, getting better at what we are weak in will help in communication. I also agree that learning to read and write is important but keeping up with technology which more and more business are switching to new ways of communicating, is helpful. One example is even blog, something I have never used before and now need to become familiar with to communicate effectively.
Technical Communication is something that everyone uses on a day to day basis and not even knowing it. I know that didn't even really think about it till this class. Everyone uses technical communication while giving speeches and presentations, because we have to take a ton of information and summarize it and present that information to an audience so they understand it. I know we have come a long way in communication. For example the cave man using grunting or so we predict and today we have a language that is pretty complex with words and different meanings. Its to out advantage to keep up with the fast track world out there and enhanced forms of communication.
After reading the chapter, it is very clear to me that technical communication is important to our society. I am going to have a job in a technology related field where Technical Communication will play a huge role in helping people understand a subject. For example, when you are explaining ideas in front of a programming team, it is very important that the team can understand and be able to pay attention to what you're relaying to them. With Technical communication becoming more advanced it leaves less and less room for errors in the relaying of information. The percentages don't lie, if you cannot communicate-you won't get hired, its as simple as that.
Chapter 1 made me realize how essential is to have well develop technical communication skills in any profession. My major is Dietetics; in the future this career will expose me to many different types of people in a daily base as well as working not only in my office but promoting healthy lives in conference, reporting articles, visual presentations (Power Point Presentations). As a read the chapter 1, I came to the conclusion that communicating with people is a difficult task because you need to provide clear specific dialogue with patients so they comprehend the message. To become a successful professional I need to work very hard in my public speech and writing skills because this two are my biggest weaknesses in the field.
Before reading the first chapter, I never knew what technical communication is or how can technical communication be apply to work environment. After reading what technical communication is and reading how it affects almost every profession, I realized that I uses some kind of technical communication everyday. I never knew that technical communication deals with all kinds of communication and information. In this aspect, technical communication is a vital skill to have for professionals. I remember in one of my engineering class the professor was talking about which skills was the important in the engineering field. The survey that the professor gave supported the examples in the book in saying that most employers favor candidates with oral and written communication skills. I guess we are so use to tech communication that we don't realize it.
Chapter 1 made me realize how essential is to have well develop technical communication skills in any profession. My major is Dietetics; in the future this career will expose me to many different types of people in a daily base as well as working not only in my office but promoting healthy lives in conference, reporting articles, visual presentations (Power Point Presentations). As a read the chapter 1, I came to the conclusion that communicating with people is a difficult task because you need to provide clear specific dialogue with patients so they comprehend the message. To become a successful professional I need to work very hard in my public speech and writing skills because this two are my biggest weaknesses in the field.
I like that this chapter started out with telling us how every area of life involves technical communication, this made it easy to read because we are able to apply it to our daily lives. As a dietitian I will spend a portion of my time educating a wide variety of people about nutrition. I will have to find successful ways to give important information to my clients in a way that is easy to follow and hopefully they will find interesting enough so they are able to remember it and to be able to follow it in their daily lives.
Technical Communication is very important in everyday life. I personally didn’t realize how much it really affected my life or even really what it was. Now that I know what it is and can relate to it and actually can pick out examples in my life, I feel like I have a better understanding of it. One simple example I think Technical Communication could be is writing summaries out of the book and blogging it. Students have to take a chapter of information out of the book, summarize it accurately and use specific techniques to blog the summary of the chapter.
When I signed up for this class, I had no idea what technical communication was or where it would apply in my life. After reading the first chapter I had a very clear and precise definition of what technical communication was, where it was used and how it would affect my life. The chapter pointed out helpful ways to incorporate what I will be learning in this class to my life and that you can apply technical communication to virtually any career. I also came to realize while reading that not only will tech. comm. be extremely useful in my future career and adult life but that it is ever present in my current life as a college student. Now I know that technical communication will improve my presentations as a future teacher and my general communication skills. It's always reassuring to learn about something that plays a role in my current life and that it will be helpful in my future.
When I decided that my English major should have an emphasis in Technical Communications, I wasn't exactly sure was it was. I knew it would prepare me for the business world better than a Creative Writing emphasis, but that is about all I knew. Just reading the first chapter has giving me a good understanding of this field. I didn't know anything about the rhetorical situation of audience, context, and purpose before this class. Since our society has become so computer oriented, this class seems like good preparation for any job.
When I signed up for this class I had no idea what technical comunication was or how it effected al of us in our everyday lives. After reading the chapter/ this first groups summaries of all the parts within the chapter I now have a better understanding of what it is. A good point within the chapter was when they were talking about prblems a comunicator could encounter, and how one of the biggest things was to choose examples or ideas dealing with the age or what professions your audience fits into. By doing this blog we are also creating a great example of Technical writing by summarizing the chapters.
Before joining this class I had a general idea of what to expect. Now with chapter one read I have a firm gasp of what is to be expected in the workplace. In the future as an engineer I can expect to spend a lot time devoted to communication. Communication and presentation can be thought of as going hand and hand. In a field that has to do with innovation communication can act in many beneficial ways. For instance, if you were to design something not every part or process is done in house. Communication or presentation is needed to request or show ideas of something new.
When reading this chapter I thought back to things I had to use a form of technical communication in one way or another. My friends like to consider me their computer help person because I know a lot about computer, gadgets, among other things. When talking to my friends, or even when I worked for Best Buy in the past, I would have to explain pretty much the same information in different ways. I cannot talk about gigahertz, front side bus speed. I would have to think of ways to get out this information on different machines in different ways. Computer A might be the low end machine, I would classify that as walking, while Computer B which would be a high end machine would be a plane, in terms of getting from one place to another. This would be an example of knowing your audience, while some people might know what you are talking about, others may not.
After reading this chapter, I understood what technical communication is all about. It’s not only the ways of presenting information orally and in a written format but it is the art of conveying the information in an appropriate manner by considering your audience and the message you are conveying a cross
As a student, I use technical communication in my various classes such speech and biology. As a biology student I research a topic and present it in an oral and written formant by considering my classmates who are my audience their comprehensibility of the information and its usability to them .
Reading this chapter, I learned ways of communicating professionally, first by considering my audience, and factors that I should put in minds such ethic way of presenting the information and constraint that I would encounter
Before I signed up for this class I didn't know what technical information was or how it related to me in everyday life but after reading this chapter I realize that there are little to no professions that don't use this in some way. I'm going into the Automotive Engineering program and when it comes time to present new designs to the office or features to the people, the use of visuals and how you need to adjust the way you talk to your audience become very important. Using one language when you’re around people that already have an understanding on your idea while using another language to communicate to a group that has just a basic automotive knowledge will determine your success in proving your point.
Being a Public Relations and Speech Comm major I use technical communication all the time and so learning how to use it properly is huge. A lot of the things that this chapter talks about apply to many different areas of life. the sections about constraints that communicators encounter apply all the time. As students we are constantly struggling with time constraints, data collection and noise.
With the field that I am choosing to go into I know that I will need use Technical Communication quite often. It is important for everyone around you to know how to communicate on the same "wave length". For example, in some jobs people have to write down procedures they used to test or gather information. Using technical communication is a excellent way to transfer the information to co-workers or customers.
My largest comment on this chapter would be on the accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability section of the chapter. I thought this one was the most relevant to me because in our own college the professors use all kinds of different ways to provide more information to all of us by using D2L and other technologies. This is one of the things they should consider because some of these things that they provide to us don't have any of the above qualities because most methods used are confusing and some times not even worth using. It is said in this chapter that all documents should have all of these qualities to be a good form of communication. This is the part of the chapter that jumped out at me and this is how it affects me personally on a day to day life.
When I signed up for this class I had no idea what to expect. But after the first week of class and reading this chapter one outline I think I have a basic understanding of what we are going to learn and what to expect from this course. Technical Communications has a lot to deal with computers but alot of it is just the terminology that deals with such topics. Technical Communications like most other professions has to deal a lot with people interactions and time constraints.
Technical Communication is something a lot of people use every day but don't really know that they're utilizing it. Depending on different situations, technical communication is a very useful tool in getting a point or objective across to others. I went to the Academy of Holy Angels and a lot of our english teachers taught us early about these types of skills to prepare us for college. I'm taking Construction Management here at Mankato and I know that I'll have many opportunities to use these skills from bidding a project to making sure something gets carried out. Its very helpful to understand something like this because a lot of times people can get bored or lose interest in something if the main point isn't being expressed in a way to grab people's attention. There will always be constraints in everything we do so I try not to worry about such things.
Technical communication is important part of my every day life like at school. I feel fortunate that I am able to use technical communication in the workplace as well. I work in a hectic office that produces a newspaper twice a week. Sure there’s technical communication exhibited throughout the paper, but also in its preparation and background. Advertising representatives must use effective communication to land a big ad. As an editor, I find different ways to communicate effectively with the use of e-mail, phone and best yet: speaking face-to-face. But that's only a couple ways I see technical communication on a daily basis.
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