Corey Place & Gena Gilbertson
This chapter begins with asking the question, “What is Reading?” Most people do not entirely realize the process while they are taking part in this action because of how second nature it becomes for a person. Reading is not simply an action where you spell out words, but rather a thought process that interprets symbols and what they mean to an individual person. Of course the information must be clear and understood by its intended audience along with the fact that an audience will absorb the information more with visual aids and stimulating words or accessories that will put emphasis on the information. Now when readers do read it is mentioned in Chapter 3 that they fall into one of the following four categories;
--Reading to assess
--Reading to learn
--Reading to learn to do
--Reading to do
The chapter is also quite helpful in letting a reader know that it’s not the words themselves but how they are presented to the reader. The words themselves hold style value in how they are presented. Some people can have a tendency of daydreaming or loosing interest in a piece of reading so the book lists a few simple tasks that a reader can do to ensure that all the information is absorbed.
--Skim the entire document so see if you can get a general idea of what the piece of reading is trying to tell you.
--Scan the document for a few special words or terms that you think are going to be of value in conveying the information.
--Predict some of the questions that a normal reader may ask about the information and see if you can gather those answers based on the reading.
The chapter puts emphasis on not only what the reader can do to obtain the information better, but what a presenter can do as well. Chunking together information, putting important points in bold, or categories lined with bullets can burn a relationship between a reader and the information being presented.
This chapter goes through many ideas that people tend to forget when presenting information. The way that you present ideas has just as much of an impact as the ideas themselves. This works both ways for the reader or listener in the fact that they need to do more than just listen to the words, but need to comprehend the concepts and terms in the context of the topic.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Chapter 3 summary
Chapter 3 explains that reading is not just the process of decoding words on a page, it also necessitates interpreting the information. This is what gives the specific text or document meaning. Regardless of the purpose, workplace professionals expect (As identified in Chapter 1) documents to be accessible, accurate, comprehensible, and usable. The specific example should also have a clear purpose. Similar to any technical communication information written documents should be neatly organized, systematically develop points, and use both verbal and visual information. Four common purposes for reading a document at the workplace include:
Assess: Often skimming to decide whether or not a document is worth reading thoroughly.
Learn: Reading to obtain knowledge relavent and pertaining to improvement in the workplace.
Learn to do: Instruction manuals and how-to step by step processes help workers learn to do.
Do: The reading serves as an external prompt for completing tasks i.e. product labels.
Reading and writing are closely related and often insperably intertwined. As a writer, it is important to be conscious of the readers purpose and vice-versa this applies to readers being conscious of the writers purpose and text features that may cause questions to occur. One strategy experienced readers use is recognizing recurrring evolving patterns that help the reader become more familiar with the document, thus making it more accessible, understandable, and usable to the reader.
Six strategies that this chapter highlights for more poignent reading and writing are:
Skim, scan, and predict: Skimming and scanning are similar methods of highlighting key points, and gaining a general idea of a documents thesis and purpose. After both skimming and scanning a reader can make infernces about that information on which to base a prediction of what ideas are going to be communicated through the document.
Identify Structure: Use of headings, visual cues, and previews of whats coming make identifying the structure of documents easy. Fairly often a technical document will feature an abstract which provide an abbreviated overview of a report while maintaining the tone and focus of the original document.
Identify Heirarchy: Being able to define heirarchy is important in distinguishing main points. Documents with more concrete heirarchies provide more clear and distinguished points and make it easier for readers to recall important information.
Draw Inferences: Inferences are simply things that are communicated without being specifically stated. Many articles and documents can imply meanings without explicitly stating them. Think about reasonable but unstated implications and inherent assumptions that are prsumed but not articulated.
Generate Questions and Examples:
Knowledge Questions: Stress the importance of specifics, facts, conventions or organization, classification systems, evaluation criteria, methods, principals, and theories.
Comprehension Questions: Comprehension questions are qualified by the use of knowledge and understanding to translate, interpret, or extrapolate ideas from the given source.
Application Questions: An application question implies that the response requires an application of principals or theories to check for understanding of their function and how they are applied to specific instances.
Analysis Question: An analysis question accentuates the differences between seperate elements of the whole document. Literally breaking the document into its devisive parts and establishing their relationships within the document.
Synthesis Question: If an analysis question breaks down a document into its seperate pieces than conversley a synthesis question relies on an essential structure to form the sum of all parts of the document to form a unique whole.
6. Monitor and Adapt Reading Strategies: Skilled and effective readers are aware of their process while they are reading. They understand the material and grasp the concepts and are they are always conscious of their comprehension of material. Excellent readers are also able to adjust and adapt to the situations that they encounter and they can reflexively acclimate themselves to that situation in order to be more successful and productive readers.
A readers specific purpose and preconceived ideas can lead different readers to interpret an identical document in completely different ways. People who come from different backgrounds and who are reading a document for different reasons will usually have their own unique set of inferences and interpretations related to the article that they are reading. It is important to be open minded and aware of your own preconceptions before reading and article and asking, "What is my prejudice or bias before reading this article?" If the reader is critical of what their purpose of reading the article is before they begin than they are likely to pull away only the relavent information pertaining to them, rather than an overall summary or sythesis of the documents whole.
Reading and writing are inextricably intertwined. So when writing consider strategies that readers use before preparing and organizing information. Also, while reading be conscious of the strategies used by the author and their purpose as well as your own specific purpose for reading.
Assess: Often skimming to decide whether or not a document is worth reading thoroughly.
Learn: Reading to obtain knowledge relavent and pertaining to improvement in the workplace.
Learn to do: Instruction manuals and how-to step by step processes help workers learn to do.
Do: The reading serves as an external prompt for completing tasks i.e. product labels.
Reading and writing are closely related and often insperably intertwined. As a writer, it is important to be conscious of the readers purpose and vice-versa this applies to readers being conscious of the writers purpose and text features that may cause questions to occur. One strategy experienced readers use is recognizing recurrring evolving patterns that help the reader become more familiar with the document, thus making it more accessible, understandable, and usable to the reader.
Six strategies that this chapter highlights for more poignent reading and writing are:
Skim, scan, and predict: Skimming and scanning are similar methods of highlighting key points, and gaining a general idea of a documents thesis and purpose. After both skimming and scanning a reader can make infernces about that information on which to base a prediction of what ideas are going to be communicated through the document.
Identify Structure: Use of headings, visual cues, and previews of whats coming make identifying the structure of documents easy. Fairly often a technical document will feature an abstract which provide an abbreviated overview of a report while maintaining the tone and focus of the original document.
Identify Heirarchy: Being able to define heirarchy is important in distinguishing main points. Documents with more concrete heirarchies provide more clear and distinguished points and make it easier for readers to recall important information.
Draw Inferences: Inferences are simply things that are communicated without being specifically stated. Many articles and documents can imply meanings without explicitly stating them. Think about reasonable but unstated implications and inherent assumptions that are prsumed but not articulated.
Generate Questions and Examples:
Knowledge Questions: Stress the importance of specifics, facts, conventions or organization, classification systems, evaluation criteria, methods, principals, and theories.
Comprehension Questions: Comprehension questions are qualified by the use of knowledge and understanding to translate, interpret, or extrapolate ideas from the given source.
Application Questions: An application question implies that the response requires an application of principals or theories to check for understanding of their function and how they are applied to specific instances.
Analysis Question: An analysis question accentuates the differences between seperate elements of the whole document. Literally breaking the document into its devisive parts and establishing their relationships within the document.
Synthesis Question: If an analysis question breaks down a document into its seperate pieces than conversley a synthesis question relies on an essential structure to form the sum of all parts of the document to form a unique whole.
6. Monitor and Adapt Reading Strategies: Skilled and effective readers are aware of their process while they are reading. They understand the material and grasp the concepts and are they are always conscious of their comprehension of material. Excellent readers are also able to adjust and adapt to the situations that they encounter and they can reflexively acclimate themselves to that situation in order to be more successful and productive readers.
A readers specific purpose and preconceived ideas can lead different readers to interpret an identical document in completely different ways. People who come from different backgrounds and who are reading a document for different reasons will usually have their own unique set of inferences and interpretations related to the article that they are reading. It is important to be open minded and aware of your own preconceptions before reading and article and asking, "What is my prejudice or bias before reading this article?" If the reader is critical of what their purpose of reading the article is before they begin than they are likely to pull away only the relavent information pertaining to them, rather than an overall summary or sythesis of the documents whole.
Reading and writing are inextricably intertwined. So when writing consider strategies that readers use before preparing and organizing information. Also, while reading be conscious of the strategies used by the author and their purpose as well as your own specific purpose for reading.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Chapter One Summary
Becca Sorensen, Abdinasir Bashir
English 271
Dr. Tesdell
May 30th
Chapter One Summary
Chapter one is about communicating in the workplace. This chapter defined what technical communication is; the importance of effective communication in the workplace; communication constraints you might encounter; and how to effectively construct meaning. It also discussed the three essential criteria for creating a document, oral presentation, or visual.
Technical Communication is described as rhetorical in the book because it is, “the art and craft of communicating technical information appropriately and persuasively to intended audiences, in complex contents, for particular purposes” (Burnett, Technical Communication, pg. 6). Closely related to technical communication, rhetoric concentrates on the visual aspect of communicating instead of the technical.
Technical Experts and Technical Communicators are the two major categories of professionals who are specially trained for the construction/preparation of technical documents, oral presentation, and visuals of an organization. The Technical Communicators are mainly responsible for the design, development and production of documents, oral presentation, and visuals. While the Technical Experts focus on communicating, and planning and preparing, technical communication. The importance of technical communication in the workplace is crucial for success. Surveys have shown that more than 90% of technical professionals attribute success to writing and speaking skills.
The three factors that influence interpretation are genres, communities, and technology. An important part of technical communication to consider is the genre. “A document, oral presentation, or visual and the rhetorical situation in which it is created and used combine to constitute the genre”. (Burnett, Technical Communication, pg. 9). Genres in technical communication affect each other. Interpretation is influenced by genres because one genre might have a different interpretation of the same information than another genre. Workplace professionals belong to communities that power their activities and understanding. One of the communities is discourse communities, which is a group that shares the same type of language. The other type of communities is called communities of practice, which is groups that join together and work together. One community interprets information differently than another community because of the different types of communities that exits and the way the communities interpret those information. Technology influences interpretation by the way information is written. Electronic information is written in many different ways while printed information is written in the same format, paragraph by paragraph.
Ethics is one important subject that is visited in technical communication. The question of whether to report negative information about a product or to report just the positive information as your employer wants is one example of an ethical decision type of situation. When writing, you should consider what to say and how to say it to your audiences with the consideration of your audiences’ understanding ability. You should also consider three things about the information that you are writing. These three things are the accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability of information. A person’ communication can be useful and timely if he or she considers the quality, quantity, relevance, and the manner of it.
Without using proper writing and speaking skills technical communicators could encounter many limitations. Even when displaying proper skills, constraints are still a major consideration. A large number of constraints to manage when creating documents, oral presentations, or visuals are: time, subject and format, audience, technology, noise, data collection, collaboration. Knowing these constraints should help a person understand and be prepared for the problems that come from these constraints.
English 271
Dr. Tesdell
May 30th
Chapter One Summary
Chapter one is about communicating in the workplace. This chapter defined what technical communication is; the importance of effective communication in the workplace; communication constraints you might encounter; and how to effectively construct meaning. It also discussed the three essential criteria for creating a document, oral presentation, or visual.
Technical Communication is described as rhetorical in the book because it is, “the art and craft of communicating technical information appropriately and persuasively to intended audiences, in complex contents, for particular purposes” (Burnett, Technical Communication, pg. 6). Closely related to technical communication, rhetoric concentrates on the visual aspect of communicating instead of the technical.
Technical Experts and Technical Communicators are the two major categories of professionals who are specially trained for the construction/preparation of technical documents, oral presentation, and visuals of an organization. The Technical Communicators are mainly responsible for the design, development and production of documents, oral presentation, and visuals. While the Technical Experts focus on communicating, and planning and preparing, technical communication. The importance of technical communication in the workplace is crucial for success. Surveys have shown that more than 90% of technical professionals attribute success to writing and speaking skills.
The three factors that influence interpretation are genres, communities, and technology. An important part of technical communication to consider is the genre. “A document, oral presentation, or visual and the rhetorical situation in which it is created and used combine to constitute the genre”. (Burnett, Technical Communication, pg. 9). Genres in technical communication affect each other. Interpretation is influenced by genres because one genre might have a different interpretation of the same information than another genre. Workplace professionals belong to communities that power their activities and understanding. One of the communities is discourse communities, which is a group that shares the same type of language. The other type of communities is called communities of practice, which is groups that join together and work together. One community interprets information differently than another community because of the different types of communities that exits and the way the communities interpret those information. Technology influences interpretation by the way information is written. Electronic information is written in many different ways while printed information is written in the same format, paragraph by paragraph.
Ethics is one important subject that is visited in technical communication. The question of whether to report negative information about a product or to report just the positive information as your employer wants is one example of an ethical decision type of situation. When writing, you should consider what to say and how to say it to your audiences with the consideration of your audiences’ understanding ability. You should also consider three things about the information that you are writing. These three things are the accessibility, comprehensibility, and usability of information. A person’ communication can be useful and timely if he or she considers the quality, quantity, relevance, and the manner of it.
Without using proper writing and speaking skills technical communicators could encounter many limitations. Even when displaying proper skills, constraints are still a major consideration. A large number of constraints to manage when creating documents, oral presentations, or visuals are: time, subject and format, audience, technology, noise, data collection, collaboration. Knowing these constraints should help a person understand and be prepared for the problems that come from these constraints.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Chapter 2 Summary
Noticing Culture in the Workplace
- People from other countries play a huge part in the workplace
- Culture can be associated with nationality, race, ethnicity, or religion.
- What is 'Normal' depends on the person, our own culture tends to be the 'normal' one.
- Because our own culture seems to be normal, we tend to not pay attention to similar situations in other culture
- Part of becoming culturally aware is looking at what we do through someone else's experiences
- What is culture?
- Sometimes a system of shared beliefs and values that influence attitudes and actions.
- These actions and attitudes are our culture
- Often more easily identified in other people than in ourselves
- Necessarily about collectives-could mean race, nationality, disability or other defining feature, not individuals
- Cultural Awareness
- Increased knowledge and sensitivity to other cultures can improve performance by:
- Better Response-documents, presentations, and visuals are likely to get more attention and response
- Increased Productivity-Meetings and other interactions are often more productive and pleasant
- Explanations-alternative points of view may help explain attitudes, tools, and artifacts that aren't immediately or obviously compatible with our own perspectives
- Compliance-likely to increase compliance with organization policies and procedures
- Global and local aspects
- Approximately four fifths of our trading is global, which means that culture and diversity are all apart of the workplace
- Globalization is the unrestricted movement of ideas and people, services and systems, goods and money across national borders around the world.
- The opposite of Globalization is Localization which is using familiar goods and services
- National Cultures are very interesting but can cause problems when working internationally
- "67% of international managers blame cultural differences for the difficulties they are confronted with working internationally" says Pricewaterhouse Coopers
- Languages are some of the biggest aspects defining cultures
- There are different words for almost anything in different cultures
- ex:what we call a 'trunk' of a car in the United States is called a 'boot' in the UK, Australia, and South Africa
- Discourse Community
- a group of people who share a number of common cultural characteristics
- same gender, race, nationality, or profession
- same political party, religion, athletic team, residential community, or corporation
- the most important shared characteristic is their common use of a specific language to accomplish something and to get the work done
- Proxemics are also different per culture, that is the physical distance between people
- Time means different things in culture like what is their thinking of "right away"
- We all need to be culturally aware in the work place
- Some things that can help are approaching someone, learning some common customs, expect the unexpected
- More information on the best companies to work for regarding culture at Fortune's 100 Best Companies
- Organizational Cultures
- the shared beliefs and behaviors of people in an organization
- expressed in formal and informal ways
- formal-policy statements, organizational charts, performance criteria
- informal-common practices, lore, gossip, e-mail
- personal factors can also make individuals part of one or more subcultures
- ex:age, income, marital status, education, roles in the community
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Welcome to our Engl 271-02 Summer 2007 blog
Welcome to our course blog. We will use this online space for blogging, discussing, and summarizing our readings in Rebecca Burnett's Technical Communication, 6th edition. Joan Hertel, who is a graduate student in our technical communication program, will be helping to administer this blog for the summer semester.
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