engl27102msumankatospring2008

2008-02-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

Chapter 4 Summary

Objectives & Outcomes of Chapter 4

Understand that professionals who plan, prepare, and present technical documents, presentations, and visuals usually have two broad purposes: to convey verifiable information and to persuade the audience to attend to this information.
Identify initial, primary, secondary, and external audiences, and determine whether these audiences are experts, professional nonexperts, technicians, equipment operators, students, generalists, or children.
Collect and analyze information about your audiences - the context in which they work, their attitudes and motivations, education, professional experiences, reading level, and organizational role.
Adjust material for different audiences in two broad ways: (1) address audiences with different levels of expertise by adjudsting the complexity of the material; (2) address audiences with different organizational roles by shifting the focus of the discussion and the choice of details, including an acknowledgement of audiences' ethical stance or point of view.

Chapter 4 descibes how to modify your technical document presentations and visuals in order to satisfy the type of audience. In order to achieve this, one must be able to identify their purpose, their audience, and also the factors influencing the audience.

Identifying Purposes

Professionals who are about to give presentations or present technical documents usually have two goals in mind: (1) to convey accurate information and (2) to persuade the audience to use the information. To do achieve these goals, the professional in preperation can ask themselves a few questions such as:

What/Why do I want my audience to learn?
What decisions will be based off this information and what information is needed to make those decisions?
What information will persuade the audience?
What objections might the audiences have and how can I overcome them?

Identifying Audiences

Once the purpose of the presentation has been established, professionals presenting technical documents also need to identify the intended audience. In order to do so, the professional needs to realize that their audience will typically want to hear about specifics rather than general ideas. The presenter also needs to prepare material for a variety of audiences (i.e. initial audience, primary audience).

Types of Audiences:

Initial Audience: usually the person to whom you submit a document though not necessarily the ultimate decision maker.
Primary Audience: a person for whom your document is actually intended, the one who will actually use the information, the decision maker.
Secondary Audience: people who receive and read your document; they have an interest because they are affected by the information or base decisions on it.
External Audience: people who are outside the immediate organization but are affected by the information or decisions based on it.

Analyzing Audiences

After identifing the audience and purpose of the presentation, an analysis of the audience is needed so you can adjust your presentation accordingly. The chapter suggests considering the following characteristics throughout the final stages of planning:

Context in which a document is interpreted:

The context in which the document is presented is essential to how easily the audience can comprehend the information. If the information isn't presented correctly, there is a possibility that it could be ignored. There are a few elements that can be adjusted in order to make the document/presentation more aesthetically pleasing such as: paragraph division, headings, page design, and type/size of font or illustrations. Also, defining terms, descending the information from most important to least important, and an uncluttered page layout, will help the "political" context -- this makes sure the audience believes it is important and worth their time to read.

Purpose and motivation of the audience:

If you know the intended audience, it is pretty easy to determine their purposes and motivations. You will either have a receptive or resistant audience. The order in which you present information is crucial when you know which audience you will have. With receptive audiences, you can present your recommendations and then support them later in the document/presentation. However with a resistant audience, you have to present the problems, discuss alternatives, and then try to persuade them to believe your idea is the best option.

Prior knowledge the audience may possess:

When you know what your audience's prior knowledge is, you can alter the vocabulary and content to fit their style. Vocational/technical trainined people will require you to focus on a practical uses for the information where as professional or academic trained people can take the theoretical applications as well as practical.

The reading level of the audience:

Obviously you need to use a vocabulary and statistical information that are relevant to your audience. You have to write your presentation or document around the ability of your audience to comprehend your information. If they can't understand it, they'll more than likely skip over information that could be very important. If the information is concrete and logically organized, the ease of reading will increase, and your information will be conveyed to a wider audience.

Organizational role of the audience:

The organizational role of your audience is equally important as identifying your audience. They are generally categorized as hierarchical (bosses at the top, managers in the middle, workers at the bottom) or nonhierarchical (everyone contributes equally to the productivity of the organization). Since most of the chapter focused on the audience that was within the presenters area of interest, this part focuses on the audience that does not belong to the area of interest. It is important to keep in mind that your audience may not know much about your product or ideas and to provide them with more background information than any internal audience(audience that is familiar with area of interest).

Differences in Expertise

Your audience will more than likely have different levels of knowledge with technical communication, therefore, you will need to change and adjust your tone, examples, concepts and language.

Differences in Roles and Stances

This section of the chapter explains that it is a good idea to maintain the same level of difficulty or simplicity throughout your presentation if the audience is of similar or parallel roles within their organization (i.e. managers of different departments). You can also emphasize on aspects of your presentation that would relatively relate to each group within the organization.

Chapter 3 Reading Technical Information

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Chapter 3

Reading Technical Information

Objectives and outcomes

- Understand that workplace professionals read documents, listen to conversations and presentations, and view visuals for a variety of purposes: Assessing and making decisions, learning background, learning to do a task, and actually doing a task.

- Recognize that reading and writing are synergistically linked activities – each affects the other.

- Use strategies of experienced communicators

Identify Purposes

Regardless of the purposes that workplace professionals have for reading, they expect information in documents to be accessible, accurate, comprehensible, and usable. The reader might be reading to assess whether to read the entire report, to learn how well something is working, or to learn how to do a certain assignment.

Reading-Writing Relationships

When writing something you want to think like the reader and maybe answer questions you think they would have. As a reader you hope the questions you ask yourself will be answered in the text.

Strategies for Effective Reading

Some strategies for effective reading are skim, scan and predict which skimming helps you locate where info is contained in the material, then scan. Scanning is the process of finding key terms or specific information that sticks out. Predicting what is in the article comes form the information you just skim and scan to formulate questions that you hope to get answered.

Identify Structure and Hierarchy

Document features are those that give the writing and overview or purpose. These are things such as the objective or purpose, the methodology, the results, and the conclusions. Other features are headings, visual cues, and previews of what’s coming. Visual cues give the reader a chance o understand the material by breaking it into chunks, or the important elements are signaled such as with bold print or italics. Previewing and reviewing give you a chance to identify and then reinforce the structure or organization of a document. The wording anticipates the wording of the first subheading giving the reader a chance to match words and make use of what they are reading.

Determine the Main Points

Seeing words that are italicized or asking questions to make sense of the reading and figure out what the main points are help determine the main points.

Draw Inferences

This is when the read makes connections and draws conclusions beyond the words and visuals that are presented. These help form opinions. Strategies are: Identify the tacit assumptions on which you believe the document is based, extend the ideas to pose reasonable but unstated implication, or speculate on the impact of the implications.

Generate Questions and Examples

Widely used levels of questions include:
- Knowledge question that emphasize the recall of specifics
- Comprehensive questions that require and understanding as well
- Application questions requiring applications of principles
- Analysis questions that emphasize separation of objects or relationships between parts
- Synthesis questions require the reader to organize the parts to create a whole
- And Evaluation questions requiring the reader to judge qualitative and quantitative value.

Monitor and Adapt Reading Strategies

Effective readers are aware of what they’re doing when they move through a document adjusting their strategies to meet the needs of the situation. The goal of the reader is to strategize what works for you. Different readings can mean different things to each reader it is how they relate it to their experiences and knowledge versus the other person especially if they come from different backgrounds or fields of study.

Chapter 2 —Understanding Culture and the Workplace

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Chapter 2

Understanding Culture and the Workplace

Objectives and Outcomes:

-Define culture and recognize the critical role that it plays in the workplace

-Understand factors that contribute to various cultures

-Analyze and understand the ways in which culture affects workplace communication

-Work more productively and respectfully with colleagues from various cultures

Noticing Culture in the Workplace

There are many different cultural differences in the United States workplace. The workplace today is very diverse and is multicultural and multiracial. In 2000 the U.S. Census states that roughly 18% of people in the US speak a language other than English at home. Also Racial Minorities own nearly 15% of U.S. companies. Slightly less than 70% of people counted by the U.S. census are white. 12% are black. 12% are Hispanic or Latino. 4% are Asian. 1%are American Indian or Alaka Native. The ability to communicate successfully in the workplace includes your ability to recognize and positely respond to culture-specific attitudes, actions, tools, and artifacts such as documents, oral presentations, and visuals.

Culture can be calssified with nationality, race, ethnicity, and religion also can be talked about as a culture of disability in which people have physical or mental disabilities.

What's Normal
Understanding a culture is more than just viewing what the normal person sees. Sometimes things that are Different to us are normal to others. For example the clothes different people wear to work you might think are strange and you think yours are normal but to others they might think yours are different. Also another example would be the accent or volume of a persons voice might be diffrerent to you but to them it is normal.

Cultural Blindness
Being unaware of other things in other cultures then our own. For example certain holidays in the U.S. that are celebrating our independence such as July 4, or December 6th are only celebrated in the U.S. People from other cultures have some of their own holidays that dont have any meaning to us.

Defining Culture
Culture is the system of learned beliefs and values that influences attitudes and actions. Another definition used says Culture involves what people think, what they do, adn the material products they produce.

Understanding the Importance of Culture
Many companies are paying closer attention to culture as a center of success for their organization. Companies are focusing on culture,diversity, and human rights for its employees, contractors, and suppliers.

Globalization and Localization
Understanding other culutres makes you more successful when respecting others in the workplace. Cultural differences are based on nationality, race, ethinicity, religion, economics, sexual orientation, gender, education, and disability. Globalization can be defined as linking local and distant cultures in way that affect both in which it is the unrestricted movement of ideas and people, services, and systems, goods and money across national borders around the world, made possible becuase of cooperative global economics, politics, and technologies.

Localization
Localization is based on preferences for familiar goods, processes, and services that have recognizable characteristics, even if global goods and servies may have a higher quality or a lower price. Products and services for people all over the world need to be localized so they are appropriate for specific users or small group users, tking into account needs that are unique to their country, customers, and language. No culture is monolithic which means no cultural is comprised of identical individuals, and no culture is the same in different contexts and circumstances.

Cultural Values

Response- Documents, presentations, and visuals that are adapted to people from other cultures are likely to get more attention and response.
Productivity- Meetings and other interactions with poeple who have different cultural perspectives are often more productive and pleasant.
Explanations- Alternative points of view can often explain attitudes, actions, tools, and artifacts that arent immediately or obviously comparible with our own perspectives.
Compliance- Attention to cultural perspectives is likely to increase compliance with organizational policies and procedures and thus increase consistency, safety, productivity, and compatibility within an organization.

Analyzing culture
American business people are always traveling overseas and working with people who live in a different culture. It's important for these people to understand differences in these cultures. It's been reported that over 65 percent of business managers worldwide have problems identifying with the cultural differences between theirs and their clients'. Language is one of the most physical aspects of culture. Whatever country business people travel to, there will be English spoken but what type? Many cultures speak English, however, they might have their own version of it.

Then there's proxemics, the study of distance between people. We have our own personal bubbles in which we only let certain people in. We let close friends and family into our intimate space (within 18 inches) while other friends and close colleagues are allowed in our personal space (no less than 18 inches). Social space (at least four feet) is for colleagues and business acquaintances.

Increase Cultural Awarness

The last section of section 2 explains how you can better understand and relate to cultures other than your own. As you enter a new culture, you need to prepare how to approach the culture. Respect and show interest in the culture, learn the body language and cultural customs. Finally, when working in an unfamiliar setting, remember that your clients are unfamiliar with you as well.

Characterizing Workplace Communication-Baden and Borth

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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.

Subject and Format Constraints

Usually the document presentation or visual is predetermined. You will need to narrow your subject, select content and determine limitations.

Audience Constraints

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.

Collaboration as a Constraint

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.

Constraints in Data Collection

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.

Constraints in Technology

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.

Constraints caused by Noise

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.

Testing

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Team 10

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how does this work?

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testing

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here

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Welcome to English 271-02, Spring 2008

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We will use this blog to discuss our course reading assignments. Welcome!