- Sep 2016
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courses.christopherylam.com courses.christopherylam.com
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One of my annotations failed to show on my stream, so I am reposting it here... https://hyp.is/4gw0nnOhEeaTMCN5eC6xTA/courses.christopherylam.com/5191/readings/albers_2005.pdf
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NEW OR EXPANDED TECHNOLOGIESTECHNICAL COMMUNICATORS NEED
This section reflects upon the development of technical communication; the elements and skills set that comprise the field have increased over time. The job market has started to reflect this change. Generally, we observe higher instances of interdisciplinary elements in the field.
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The purpose of this article is to examine the dynamic field of technical communication and how the demands of the current audience shifts over time. Thus, the technical writer must pay attention to how the modes of rhetoric affect the audience's response. The article proposes a call to action for research to better understand this connection.
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The knowledge required for develop-ing, arranging, and presenting information requires an under-standing of the various technologies and tools available andan understanding of how the audience responds to thosetechnologies and tools. Writing is only one element of pro-viding that information; to ignore the other elements is toensure both our long-term obsolescence and lack of powerand respect within the project team and corporation.
This section is a call to action to address the growing field of technical communication and how people can examine rhetoric in order to better fit the demands of modern communication.
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Undeniably, a jack of all trades attitude is not whatwe need.
Contrary to this statement, we advise younger generations to adopt this attitude for a better chance at success in getting hired.
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e need to con-sciously work on how to address these issues
I expected this document to be more of an expository document, but this persuasive language says otherwise (Call to Action).
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Technical communication from the practitioner's viewhas a heavy focus on the technology side, while oftenignoring the softer social side.
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we havesolved the problems, why are so many manuals and helpsystems still unused? Why are so many Web sites still sounusable in terms of navigation and—especially—content
This is a very basic example of how seemingly minor differences in modes can make the difference between widespread use or becoming obsolete. Rhetoric should always be created with the audience in mind.
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realize thatabout 94% of the people receiving this journal are practi-tioners, and most don't want to read about theory andresearch
This statement defines the primary intended audience, hence the technical jargon. It's heavily implied that the audience is familiar with the field.
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I believe that Figure 1 is especially relevant to thisspecial issue because all of those areas map out the futureexpansion of technical communication and all are highlytechnology dependent using a wide range of technologies.As writers, we need to be conversant in all areas with boththe technology and the communications issues required toproperly communicate information to readers
I feel like Figure 1 is overly generic to display the "wide range of technologies" because I feel it could have included a category along the lines of an "interactive/response" category that relates to sensory and audience response. This is sort of an intersectionality that has a foot in design and another in human factors.
This image shows the relationship between audience and technical writer and how the connection has gotten more important in recent years. It's difficult to capture this in Figure 1, despite the wide scopes of the available categories.
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Considering how various technologies integrate withour current work practices and how they will change thosepractices is a difficult issue to address. The vendors whoprovide tools sell them with a hype-filled message of howtheir products will revolutionize the business and thenprovide training on only the basic operation of the tool.Issues of how the technology applies to the business andhow a tool relates to the other tools and technologies in thecompany are neglected. Or, to parody a textbook, themethods of integration are left for the writer to solve.Coupled with the development shift is a shift to cross-discipline teams that are changing project management(see Fisher and Bennion in this issue for one view of thisshift), changes that are fundamental enough to bring intoquestion what is meant by technical documentation andwhat skill sets a technical communicator must possess.Providing context-based help and moving more informa-tion into the interface shift both how we view audienceneeds and what we write to address those need
In reference to Figure 1, this quote further propels my argument that the diagram is too simiplistic. The field is constantly evolving and "cross-discipline;" there are far too many facets and multi-disciplinary interactions that the graphic fails to capture. Right now, I feel like this image needs to be closer to a spider web-like appearance than a simple x shape. I agree that it is difficult to address.
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Figure 1
What is Information Architecture?
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amely, what technologiesare needed to support the skills set required for the job.Unfortunately, the opposite is more often the norm: defin-ing/selecting a technology and then figuring out theneeded skill sets.
This statement demonstrates one of the prevalent problems in defining technical communication's scope. Because the field is dynamic, people constantly have to redefine the "norms."
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Traditionally, the focus of technical communica-tors has been on writing documents. However, inrecent years, technical communicators have beenwidening their scope and expanding into areassuch as interface and interaction design, information archi-tecture, information design, and usability. In tandem withthis expansion, the fundamental methods of deliveringinformation have changed, primarily though use of singlesourcing, XML, and multiple methods of delivery, all ofwhich have increased the need for both collaboration andproject management.Defining what those new roles might be and clarifyinghow they fit within technical communication has been thetopic of many conference presentations and recent publi-cations, including one of my own (Albers 2003)
We acknowledge that technical writing is a dynamic concept; thus, its definition changes as it evolves and encompasses new modes of communication.
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One goal of this specialissue is to help with what Shirk called the "developingawareness of transition from old skills and concepts to newones" by considering both how the field will be affectedbased on the new roles, and which jobs and skill sets willexpand and which will shrink or be rendered obsolete. I
I assume that this is Albers's primary focus. He intends to examine the various elements of the field for the purpose of examining the scope of how we define technical writing.
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