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.