- Sep 2016
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techwritingf16.robinwharton.net techwritingf16.robinwharton.netTW44-1C.vp11
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Rittel and Webber claim that responding to wicked problems is at once avaluative and deliberative process.
Surely not at ONCE. Wouldn't deliberating on a problem before you've properly identified lead to a conclusion based on incomplete information? Or do you keep evaluating the problem as it evolves?
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Indeed, many of the issues that demand our collective attention(e.g., global climate change, educational reform, widespread unemployment)are so “wicked,” andill-defined, that they require us to expand our thinkingbeyond a linear, definition/solution model for research and social planning.Environmental catastrophes like the 2010 Gulf oil spill are noteworthy in thisregard: that is, because they are so complex in their causes and effects, theycannot necessarily be “solved” in any simple sense of the term.
This is very true. Real world problems are far too sophisticated for quick fix answers. Instead, they require long term solutions, and for those solutions to come to fruition, there has to be a significant amount of planning and communication involved. This is where technical writing can be very useful.
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They differ from conventionaltopoi, however, in the sense that they encompassnot only language but also the visual, material, functional, and organizational focithat Buchanan describes.
Multi-modal communication is very useful when working with placements as it is key to combining the various types of information (visual, lingual, auditory, etc.) that you may come across or even create while researching using a placement.
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Indeed, even though thewell was officially capped on September 19th, 2010, the spill continued to be anongoing point of disputation.
This is an excellent example of the "No Ultimate Solution" component of of a wicked problem. Even after a plan has been implement there is still discussion about whether the plan worked as well as it should have and whether the plan will cause problems in the future.
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There is no immediateand no ultimate test of asolution to a wickedproblem.
This is why rhetoric and dialogue are so important when searching for a solution. After a solution is implemented, there is no easy way to tell how well it is working or if another solution would have worked better. Weighing your options and considering how to apply their various components carefully is central to technical writing and to rhetoric in general.
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Placements function in a similar way as rhetorical topics in the sense that theyare ostensibly universal in scope but can be applied in particular situations.They differ from conventionaltopoi, however, in the sense that they encompassnot only language but also the visual, material, functional, and organizational focithat Buchanan describes.
Multi-modal communication is useful when presenting placements as it is key to combining the various forms of information (visual, lingual, auditory, etc.) that you may come across or even create while researching using a placement.
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One prominent issue for my students—and a usefullesson for me as an instructor—was that individual groups did not always agreewith one another regarding the information they were gathering. How much oilhad actually been released into the Gulf? What effects would dispersants haveon the marine ecology? Who was ultimately to blame for the incident? Simply put,we quickly learned that the process of inquiry—even the seemingly “basic” task oflocating reliable information—was a wicked problem in its own right.
People might be more biased towards one explanation depending on where they started in their research. Interfacing with other research groups is a good way to broaden you own perspective, and technical writing is an important skill when sharing your research with others.
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To implement this focus, I used Rittel and Webber’s 10 characteristics (seeTable 1) to identify the Gulf spill as a wicked problem; and to teach strategiesfor rhetorical invention, I used Buchanan’s doctrine of placements as a heuristicfor addressing specific issues based on students’ personal, disciplinary, andprofessional interests.
It is a very good idea to combine these techniques when you are identifying and troubleshooting a problem. Often you have trouble thinking of solutions because you haven't identified the problem. Other times you have trouble weighing your solutions because you've haven't done a good enough idea of identifying the problem.
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Students used placements strategically both within and between groups. Forexample, a group that included wildlife and forestry majors could adopt “activitiesand organized services” as a starting point. Taking this approach allowed themto manage the scope of their inquiry (e.g., they could focus, generally, on theways in which oil was affecting flora and fauna along the coast) and guidethem in developing specific projects (e.g., they could design and propose theimplementation of new, cost-effective wildlife habitats in the coastal estuaries).
The students will have a fuller and more objective idea of the wicked problem after they combine the research they attained from different their various starting point. This decreases the chance of the whole class having biased information. Since they began researching different, more specific topics, they will all have to go to different sources. Now it will be easier to spot flawed information.
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1. the design of symbolic and visual communications;2. the design of material objects;3. the design of activities and organized services; and4. the design of complex systems or environments for living, working, playing,and learning.
I imagine it is difficult to solve a wicked problem if you don't have a large community of participants among the general population to assist you and give your solution rhetorical credibility. Using these heuristics widen the amount of people who are able to understand and, consequently, assist.
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Both are wicked in the ways that Rittel and Webberdescribe. They confirm, for instance, that “there is no definite formulation ofa wicked problem” (e.g., the sinking of Deepwater Horizon warranted a varietyof responses based on different assessments of the incident) and that “everywicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem” (e.g.,the spill can be linked to human fallibility but also to energy consumption habitsthat can be used to warrant, even if they may not necessitate, drilling for oil inthe Gulf of Mexico).
Identifying what the problem is and what facets of it need to be solved can be the most difficult part of the process. Using the oil spill example, while many environmentalists might consider the damage to the ecosystem to be the most important problem facing the regions, others might deny the importance of the ecosystem all together and want to focus instead on stimulating the local economies that have been depressed by the disaster.
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