Chapter 18

Chapter 18 focuses on collaboration within technical communication.   The chapter cites that up to 70% of U.S. firms conduct groupwork, so there is immense value in understanding how to work well in a team.  The chapter highlights that smaller groups are normally more productive than larger groups, and I certainly agree.  From my experience, the ideal group size is approximately 3-5.  In college, and specifically in business classes, group projects are a normal requirement.  Just as the chapter cites “social loafing” (free-riding) as an issue in professional workplaces, it is also an issue in college classes.  One of the more challenging aspects of group projects is that team members can hold different expectations for what quality of work is “acceptable.”  An employee wanting to get noticed for a promotion will likely have higher standards for the project than an employee who is not interested in advancement. Likewise, students wanting an A in class will be willing to put forth more effort than a student looking to be a “social loafer” and get a C.   Although group projects can be frustrating for those students putting forward greater individual effort to elevate the group’s grade, group projects can be outstanding when each member of the team holds the same goal.  In this course, for example, each member of my service learning project group held the goal of producing quality material for the Burkhart Center that was deserving of a high grade.  Since we each held that goal, we could take individual efforts and be fairly confident that each of us was pulling our own weight.  Although I do not have much experience with groupwork in corporate settings, it is logical that if a team follows a common vision they could be far more successful than any one contributor could individually.  This leads to the idea that “the whole could be greater than the sum of its parts.”

Chapter 17

Chapter 17 discusses “New Media” and its importance in the field of Technical Communication.  New Media consists of “networked digital communication technologies.”  In other words, New Media deals with many of the technological trends in recent years including cell phones, networked systems at work, video games, and how technology may head in the future.  To understand how New Media plays into technical communication, one must heavily consider the audience and what he or she specifically needs.  For example, if a technical writer were working on a development team for a video game, the text displayed on screen would need to meet certain criteria; alternatively, if a technical writer were working for Verizon and writing informational texts, he or she would need to construct it with a different mindset.  A true understanding of “New Media” within technical communication requires an open mind and a significant amount of usability testing.  Even with manuals, for example, the audience may want to receive the information differently; while many electronic products have visual-heavy instructions (DVD players, TVs, etc) others have no instructions at all (Apple products) to reinforce their ease of use.  As Apple shows, sometimes no instructions may be the ultimate demonstration of user simplicity.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16 discusses how information design is important in the field of technical communication.  The chapter takes emphasis away from the actual planning and writing process and sets it on how that information is organized.  If the audience cannot clearly understand the information being presented, the overall project or venture will surely fail to reach its potential.  Information does not just deal with using fancy graphs or charts, though; it is also important within text-based documents.  Since a reader tends to focus on the beginning and ends of paragraphs, it makes sense to “design” the paragraphs with the most important information located there.  Likewise, the idea of “information design” supports introductions and conclusions that are clear and well-presented.  The chapter also presented evidence that people often learn more easily through visuals than text alone.  Understanding is maximized when text and visuals are carefully integrated together.  Depending on the project or assignment, a verbal element could be integrated along with the visual and textual to bolster understanding.

In my own experience, design plays a significant role in my perception of a paper, project, or presentation.  If something is aesthetically pleasing, then I am naturally more likely to believe it is of high value and worth my time to understand.  Alternatively, for example, when professors use PowerPoint presentations with enough text to cause students a slow “death by PowerPoint,” the design clearly works against them.  In my experience both in writing and in business, design is one of the most significant steps in piquing the audience’s attention and maximizing understanding. 

Chapters 14 and 15

Chapter 14 focuses on genre within the field of Technical Communication.  The chapter considers Genre, loosely speaking, to be “shared textual conventions.”  As a vivid example, the text provides the example of a “class introduction” on the first day of a new semester.  Within the genre of “class introduction,” certain topics are expected to be introduced (your name, major, maybe a brief intro) but others are not (sexuality, political views, religious beliefs, etc).  Knowing the genre within a given situation can help technical communicators best reach their audience in the way that the audience wishes to be reached.  The chapter also touches on the idea of “changing genres,” and how technical communicators need to be up-to-speed with industry trends, such as “scientific research articles” on page 344.  A key benefit of genre is that readers accustomed to that specific style “genre” of writing can more easily find information within a document.  Writers, however, should not use genre as a crutch; like any type of writing, genre-based writing should be tailored to the individual audience, even if that deviates from the broader and more accepted “genre” within that field.

Chapter 15 discusses how technical communicators can write effectively across a variety of different settings.   Although the book has discussed, more broadly, that technical communicators spend most of their day completing tasks other than writing, the skill of writing is what sets technical communicators apart from other professionals.  From this standpoint, I felt that chapter 15 was one of the most relevant chapters to the actual act of writing.  The chapter discussed considerations such as editing, proofreading, and stages, but did not discuss the actual process of writing as much as it probably could have.  Specifically, I felt that its omission of any mention of “typing speed” was significant within the chapter.  Within the broader workplace, a significant performance differentiator is typing speed, and this is surely also true within the field of technical communication – where professionals spend a vital part of their day behind the keyboard. 

Chapters 12 and 13

Chapter 12 focuses on the idea that merely presenting information to an audience does not guarantee that they will value it, understand it, or use it effectively.  One example the chapter uses is the common marketing mantra of “if you build it, they will come.”  Though revolutionary ideas sometimes make companies runaway profits (Apple and its pioneering of the IPod is an example that comes to mind), many products that are simply “built” certainly don’t attract the attention they seek – especially it is not built with the user in mind. The chapter presents some heuristics on how to assess “artifacts” and their usability to audiences, and also discusses how to rank if “artifacts represent acceptable quality...” using a scale of 1-5, with 1 representing a “minimal error” and 5 representing a “catastrophic error.”  One element I found interesting within the chapter was the emphasis on “appropriate sampling methods and sample sizes,” quoting work from one of my former Technical Communication professors, Dr. Amy Koerber.

Chapter 13 delves into project management within the field of technical communication.  The chapter highlights the importance of flowcharts that include “project phases of planning,” “research,” “information gathering,” and “revision,” among others.  Further, the chapter highlights the importance of time management.  Just as any businessperson knows that a project without a timeline is destined to fail, a company’s reliance on its technical communication team is certainly likely to be time-sensitive and require deadlines with updates at certain stages in the development process.  The chapter closes with a statistic that reinforces its overall theme – “technical communicators spend only 20-30% of their time writing.”  Accordingly, the vast majority of their time is dedicated to the development process associated with projects, so project management and time management are becoming increasingly vital. 

Chapters 10 and 11

Chapter 10 discusses how technical communication projects have begun incorporating users in the development process.  As opposed to a strict “audience analysis,” users in many new successful ventures are actually part of the process themselves.  The chapter also cautions against including users in the design process simply as a “means to an end,” suggesting instead that users be asked to “genuinely contribute to the conversation” (247).   To address the issue of organizational constraints or budgetary issues, companies might set a specific point of contact within a company, set up in-house stimulations of the user environment (as opposed to traveling to user locations), and examining the cultural context of users.  From reading the chapter and understanding some cultural perspective of user inclusion in projects, it seems reasonable that user-centered projects will become increasingly common in the future.

Chapter 11 considers how technical communicators can study work contexts, when “context” is defined as “the set of observable differences in actors’ material relationships within two or more instances of the same activity. A practitioner of technical communication needs to be aware of the work context to adequately serve the needs of the organization.  The definition of “context” in this chapter is defined and sub-defined to provide the basis of the chapter.  The chapter makes sense from its definition of “context,” but the narrowness of the definition seemed a bit foreign to me.  When I normally think of context, I think of the social and cultural norms present in an organization, not necessarily dealing with “material relationships.”  From this standpoint, it seems like another word could have been a better substitute for “context,” but it made sense from the careful way it was defined in the chapter.

Blog Post for Chapters 6 and 8

Chapter 6 discusses “work tools” in the context of technical communication.  By using tools such as text and HTML editors, CSS (cascading style sheet) templates, and other forms of technology, technical communicators are better able to serve the needs of their audience or company.  The chapter discusses “activity theory” as one means of understanding how work tools can play a role in a group or organization, taking into account cultural and social context.  The chapter also highlighted that technology can also be a crutch in certain situations, and the specific example given was a medical practice that encountered unexpected issues when it transferred to electronic record keeping.

Chapter 8 makes some predictions about the future of technical communication.  Practitioners within the field, the author posits, will be faced with a variety of issues that include “audiences with limited attention,” “doing several things at once,” and dealing with “too much incoming information across too many media devices.”  Further, in contrast to traditional technical writing, new forms of technical communication will involve working in groups and writing about advanced software that the writer will likely not fully understand.  Further, the field has increasingly become “wicked” as opposed to “tame.”  In this use, the author considers a “wicked” problem to be one without a clearly defined problem or solution and a “tame” problem as a fairly understandable issue with predictable results (like a game of chess).  I agree with the author’s predictions, particularly as they relate to an increase in technological specialization, and I am excited for the future of the profession.  

Chapters 5 and 7

Chapter 5 discusses rhetorical theory within the field of Technical Communication.  One personal takeaway from the chapter were the different means of defining “theory.”  Within academia, “theories” are almost revered because of the extensive research and testing that goes into establishing them.  In lay terms, however, a “theory” could mean just about anything, especially a conjecture without much substantiation.  Another method, supported by Jonathan Culler, holds that theories are 1) interdisciplinary, analytical and speculative, critiques of commons sense, and reflexive (129).  For example, the book highlights a theory of “cultural usability” as a means of understanding how different groups can best be communicated with and understood.  Without a form of cultural understanding, technical communicators might risk slipping into a more robotic or systems-based approach that would neglect the human aspects of the group or organization.

Chapter 7 discusses how the connection between history and organizational culture can be helpful to technical communicators attempting to tailor their work to their audience.  By understanding organizational culture, writers are better able to address the needs of their organization, and historical organizational culture can give clues as to what would be well-received by the organization and in what manner. The author offers a heuristic for using history within technical communication: 1) Know what systems of order the workplace creates, 2) Know how the history and culture of the workplace influences the ordering process, and 3) Know how decisions in the workplace shape and order the actions of others. (175-176). Through understanding history within an organization, technical communicators can understand how its culture came to exist at present, and can give clues as to how it might change in the future. 

Chapter 2 and JWT Study for Ford

Chapter 2 focuses on the day-to-day work patterns that a technical communicator might experience.  A key takeaway from the chapter was that technical communicators do far more than just write; in fact, they often integrate themselves deep within the company’s framework to understand the company’s culture and how employees like to receive information.  I found it interesting how the book distilled typical work flows into three general patterns: seeing technical communicators as “Information Designers,” “User Advocates,” and “Stewards of Writing Activity Within Organizations.”  I agree with the assessment the author makes, particularly with regard to “Information Designers” and “User Advocates.”  As business continues into the 21^st Century, it seems increasingly important that technical communicators be able to think outside the normal confines of “manual writing” and other tasks commonly associated with technical writing.  Placing focus on the end-user of the information (audience) is also vital; if technical communicators understand their audience, they will be able to transmit the information in an understandable and more impactful way.

The second reading for this week, entitled “Ethnographic Interviews Guide Design

of Ford Vehicles Website,” discussed how the digital design agency for Ford Motor Company, J. Walter Thompson (JWT), performed an ethnographic study to improve Ford’s website. I found it interesting how the team did field interviews in prospective car buyers’ homes.  Further, the interview sample was divided 50% into California car buyers and 50% into New York car buyers.  JWT was particularly focused on the process through which new car buyers search for vehicles.  From the study, JWT improved usability on the site and made it easier to print black-and-white handouts of vehicles so that buyers could discuss them with family or salespeople at car dealerships.  

Chapter 3 and 4 and Reflections

(1) Response to Class Readings for Week 2:

Chapter 3 focuses on how technical communication can be used to incorporate into an organization’s culture.  Along with providing a framework that technical communicators can use to assimilate within an organization, the chapter follows a team of three women working a project for Women’s Family Planning Centers (WFPC).  As the team with WFPC discovers, understanding organizational culture helps one meet specific needs as well go above-and-beyond and meet needs the organization did not even know were unmet. 

On page 78, the author quotes organizational psychologist Edgar Schein in defining culture: “A pattern of basic assumptions invented by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptations and internal integration that has worked enough to be considered valid, and therefore, is to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.” From this definition, the reader can gather that organizational culture involves learning, adapting, integrating, and teaching – significant areas to understand by any measure.

The chapter also discusses a heuristic of the “5 W’s” for fitting into and understanding an organization’s culture: Who, What, When, Where, and How.  Using the answers to these questions as a foundation, technical communicators can proceed confidently with their day-to-day work and hold a better understanding of culture. 

Chapter 4 delves into how students and professionals can improve their skills in technical communication.  It starts by introducing three technical writers who graduated from Utah State University; although they have different jobs, their career paths began with a degree in technical communication.  Later in the chapter, the author includes personal narratives from each of the students on how they developed professionally in their early career.  Although their careers took different paths, they each considered early preparation vital in their profession.  The chapter also focuses on the importance of defining the field of “technical communication,” because as the author relays on page 101, “unless we are able to define our field, we are unlikely to be recognized as a profession.”

As someone completing a major in the college of business, I found it helpful that the chapter broke down the different competencies a practitioner of technical communication might need.  Qualities such as “write clearly” and “evaluate their own and others’ work” stood out as fairly obvious, but other qualities such as “ability to collaborate” and “assess and learn technology” and “conduct research and usability tests” might not be readily apparent to someone unfamiliar with the field (103-104).

(2) Job Posting

Job Title: Land Representative (Surface)

Job is available in these locations: Midland, Texas, USA

Overview External: Chevron is one of the world's leading energy companies, with approximately 60,000 employees working in countries around the world. We explore, produce and transport crude oil and natural gas; refine, market and distribute fuels and other energy products; manufacture and sell petrochemical products; generate power; and develop future energy resources, including biofuels and geothermal energy. To learn more, visit the Explore Chevron website.

Position Details: Responsibilities for this position may include but are not limited to:

•          Develop and maintain close relationships with the owners of the surface where Chevron has oil and gas leases and or unit operations.
•          Oversee placement of locations and staking of such for new wells and expansion of pads for work-overs and re-completions.
•          Notify and coordinate meetings, if applicable, with appropriate parties for staking the well.
•          Negotiate terms and draft rights-of-way, surface use agreements, damage schedules and all other applicable agreements regarding surface use or damage settlement with surface owner, partners, and government agencies Input and maintain agreement in Land's textual system; use of Chevron's spatial system, QGIS for the printing of maps.
•          Provide Operation Supervisors, Health Environment and Safety (HES), additional support on surface problems and serve as contact for surface owners who require special attention.
•          Verify surface ownership through checking public records and verify Chevron's access to company assets.
•          Oversee and document payment of damages through company process.
•          Work with appropriate government and regulatory offices as necessary regarding Chevron's operations.

Required Qualifications:

•          A Bachelor’s degree is required.
•          A minimum of 1 year of experience in the oil industry or agriculture experience.
•          Able to handle tense situations with tact and diplomacy for win-win solution.
•          Knowledge of field operations and/or surface work.
•          Preferred Qualifications:
•          A degree in Energy Management or Agriculture and/or 05
•          years in Land work with emphasis in
•          surface or prior work in the oil industry.
•          Knowledge of oil and gas operations and geography and history of the Permian Basin.
•          Must work well with a wide diversity of people.
•          Demonstrated effective time management skills.
•          Effective communicator and good negotiation skills.

(3) Personal Competencies for Job

• Bachelors degree in Energy Commerce from a leading program in USA
• Industry experience through 3 Summer Internships and exposure through family
• Excellent Negotiator
• Attention to Detail
• Strong Oral and Written Communication Skills (minor in Technical Communication, former writing tutor for 3+ years)
• Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

Chapter 1 Blog and Field Notes

(1) Response to Class Readings for Week 1: 

The introduction provides an overview of the constantly evolving field of Technical Communication, a brief history, and some reflective examples of communication in this technological era.  For example, on page two, the author poses the rhetorical question: “how does one person learn to develop not just excellent writing skills but also expertise in task analysis, document design, HTML…and more?”  Accordingly, the author challenges that technical communicators must adapt their evolving skills to situational demands. Ending with a basic introduction to heuristics, “rough frameworks for approaching specific types of situations,” the intro encourages students to use frameworks as a starting point in Technical Communication (4).

Chapter 1, “Boundaries, Artifacts, and Identities” explores maps as possible ways to define or qualify the field of Technical Communication.  Historical maps can be particularly useful to show how the field has changed over time and can help predict how it might continue to change; research maps focus on how technical communicators have solved issues in the past; skills maps highlight the technical skills and broader understanding required by practitioners of the discipline.  The author implies that the difficulty of “defining” Technical Communication stems from the wide range of the field.

 

One topic I found particularly interesting in the Chapter 1 was text clouds, or “visual representations of words…that describe different pieces of information contained in extensive websites, databases, or blogs (27).”  The author posits that text clouds can employ “size, weight, and color” to describe relative importance and recurrence of words, and provides several examples of text clouds for the field of Technical Communication (27). 

(2) Field Notes Assignment

I conducted my field observation at 11:30 on a weekday at the Student Union Building cafeteria, one of the most populated places at Texas Tech during lunchtime.  Because of the crowded environment, and diverse tables of people, it made for an interesting observation.  My notes are included below:

(3) Job Description

Although I have already accepted a full-time position with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation upon graduation, I located a similar job posting from Chevron's website, for the purpose of the resume/cover letter assignment in 4380.  The job is for a "Land Representative" in Midland, Texas. 

Introduction

My name is Joseph Kmetz and I will be using this blog as a companion to English 4380, Professional Issues in Technical Communication. I am a senior at Texas Tech University, majoring in Energy Commerce and minoring in Technical Communication. Thank you for visiting.