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.