The Report for Decision Making

I found it quite interesting that Rude basis her argument, at least partially, on the idea that genre should be defined through context rather than form. She describes the differences in terminology and procedure used by textbooks for writing repots which deal with decision making. Some of the various names, given by the textbooks, for these reports include feasibility reports, problem solving reports, and managerial reports. One of the main differences in procedure that she describes is the method and wording for the argument.

Grouping genre, or anything for that matter, by context would create completely different groups than grouping it by form. This being the case, I can not help but wonder if the discrepancies in the textbooks stem from the writer’s definition of genre, which is most likely based on the more traditional idea of genre being based on form. They may not have even considered feasibility reports, problem solving reports, and managerial reports as in the same genre, considering they instructed writing them with differently (with different forms).

Engineering writing engineering

Winsor begins by commenting that she would never do a so-called study like this now. The article is outdated for several reasons, mostly problems with construction like explanation of her subject choice or analytical triangulation. Regardless, its value is in its interdisciplinary perspective. The basic premise here is this: Observations of the external world is transformed into "knowledge" through language. However, engineers wouldn't agree with this, according to Winsor, because they "see themselves as working directly on physical objects" and thus believe that their knowledge is derived directly from an object without linguistic transformation.

To look at an engineer’s textual product through the lens of the language transformation theory, Winsor sought the aid of a mechanical engineer and studied his documents as well as his process in writing a technical paper. Specifically, she noted that the instruments that interface the physical environment or object with the engineers produce raw textual information that must be interpreted into knowledge. Therefore, Winsor stated that knowledge for the engineers is “constructed through texts, not discovered in the original process of lab work,” via the process of inscription.

In viewing her engineer’s work product, Winsor concluded that his writing wasn’t the final product but the means of its creation as the source of engineering knowledge. Moreover, all the raw instrumentation data are socially codified to make meaning. The engineer’s knowledge about the object (engine) and the documentation of the engine were the same, and Winsor stated unequivocally that the engineer had no knowledge of the object that wasn’t tied directly to writing. In the section “Writing the engineer,” Winsor discussed how documents that the engineer used and produced were interpretive of the engineers themselves in that the generated reports created and reflected forms of the engineering discipline.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting article though it lacked in the areas to which the author admitted in the introduction. I think it’s important to generalize more that language is the crux of knowledge, according to this theory, not necessarily writing on paper, although temporal stability of the linguistic product is primary for transmission of knowledge.

Beyond Skill Building: Challenges Facing Technical Communication Teachers in the Computer Age

The questions and issues raised in Selber’s article published in 1993 still reverberate with the use of technology in and for education in general and in tech comm., in particular. The author begins by surveying the courses that involved the use of technology in technical communication programs in the US and categorizing them. Three main categories of approaches to the design of computer related course are identified. These are Production courses which “introduce students to skills and processes involved in using computers to support day-to-day work;” Computer Literacy courses “that broaden students’ understanding of computers as they relate to theories of reading, writing, and textuality;” and course Situating Technology in Historical, Political, and Social Contexts that “help examine the ideological nature of implementing and using computers, including social and political issues. (p. 453)

Following this classification, the author examines the reasons which motivate his teaching contemporaries to develop computer related tech comm. courses. He warns that for some faculty may be falling into the trap of doing it uncritically just following the trends. Overall, however reasons including “increase[ing] students’ marketability in business and industry, build[ing] skill important to technical communication activities, improv[ing] the quality of students’ writing, promoting collaboration, and provid[ing] faculty with an opportunity to research issues related to computers and technical communication.” (p. 458)

The author lauds the reasons and efforts of integrating computers into instruction of technical communication as worthwhile, but suggests that there are “challenges ahead.” These challenges include (1) balancing technological with literacy and humanistic concerns, (2) re-envisioning our computer-related curricula, and (3) educating teachers who use computers in their classrooms.

To comment on the article, I want to suggest that it is both fortunate and sad that these challenges are still current even today, 13 years later, after the Internet and multimedia revolutions. Fortunate – because it gives us a foundation for thinking about and conceptualizing use of computers in teaching technical communication. Sad – because the issues that plagued computer-related curricula in tech comm back then have largely not been addressed.

The Social Perspective and Professional Communication

In this article, “The social perspective and professional communication”, Charlotte Thralls and Nancy Roundy Blyler talks about three different social perspectives in professional and academic communication. They are: the social constructionist approach, the ideologic approach, and the paralogic hermeneutic approach. They further breaks these categories down to abstract some similarities and the distinctions that are present in research work of professional writing. The way they do this is by dividing them into four notions: community, knowledge and consensus, discourse conventions and collaboration.

According to Burfee, the community shares the knowledge that is stimulated by everyone as a unit. In the workplace the corporate culture plays a major role on how everyone communicates. In the academic field, Myers study shows how the two different biologist end up writing a proposal with the same outline and focusing on the same audience. Burfee also states, ‘There is only an agreement, a consensus arrived at for the time being by communities of knowledgeable peers’ (128). The constructionist approach is to agree to one notion in a community. He also believes that language is a major part of the discourse convention as communities comes to a consensus by utilizing the language used by their peers. To conclude all these everything is tied together with collaboration.

Ideological approach is significantly different from the constructionist approach. Ideologist believes in individualism in a community. It is not about coming to consensus based on the knowledge of the peer leaders in the community. Their convention is to involve both the community and all the members within it. Their view of collaboration is about breaking out of the norm which, is defined by the constructionist and take control as an individual.

The paralogic hermeneutic idea is to be open-ended and interpretative. They communicate by interaction. It is not about defining a theory but researching and exploring the same idea in a repetitive fashion. This idea is a major leap for constructionist and ideologists. In my opinion this is the way we should try to go forward with. It is unconventional compared to the other two ways but if allows us to explore beyond expectations.

The Composing Process of an Engineer

Jack Selzer's article "The Composing Process of an Engineer" details the approach to writing taken by Kenneth E. Nelson, an engineer at Henningson, Durham, and Richardson (HDR). Selzer examined Nelson's documents and notes, interviewed Nelson, and listened to responses to questions recorded by Nelson before and after he created documents. This in-depth examination of Nelson's writing process filled a void in writing process research at the time (1982), as most investigations of the writing process had been conducted regarding student writers rather than developed and professional writers, particularly those in technical fields.

Selzer found that Nelson's process varied greatly from the process observed in the student writers. Nelson spent the vast majority of his time in the invention or arranging phases of the writing process. He invested less than twenty percent in the drafting process and under five percent in the revision process. Also, Selzer found Nelson's writing to be almost entirely linear, in that Nelson completed each step and generally did not loop back on prior stages of writing. This is different from dominant conventions of writing, which describe writing as a recursive process that generally loops back on prior steps (rather than proceeding in a linear fashion), and emphasized revision heavily.

This leads Selzer (and his readers) to conclude that professional and more scientific writers might approach the writing process very differently than the process is usually taught to student writers, and might call for different approach to teaching technical writing. From my experiences with composition, much of this makes sense. For instance, writers with heavy technical backgrounds may have already internalized habits that lend themselves to heavily weighing the processes of invention and arrangement. Greater preparation time (which beginning students almost never give much attention to) would result, as it did in Nelson's case, less need for revision due to greater preparation. Also, writers whose expertise comes from technical fields may have learned to approach processes in a linear way. For instance, architectural projects and scientific experiments often must be carefully planned in advance, and do not allow for a recursive approach, because once the work is in progress, errors may not be reversible after they occur. Because of this, writers with expertise in engineering and similar fields may be used to planning more and revising less.

Overall, Selzer's article lends an interesting perspective to research on how the writing process may be taught, and addresses the facts that technical writing students may need a differently structured writing process than, say, my composition students. However, Nelson represents only one person, and I think that while Selzer's case study is interesting, that it cannot be declared as necessarily representative for all technical writing professionals. His history of expertise, type of writing background, amount of practice, and comfort with writing do not necessarily represent engineers or technical writers as a whole, and one case study certainly doesn't not define such a broad group. However, it was an interesting look at the approach of one technical communicator.

Writing in an Emerging Organization

“The research results that form this model describe and explain the rhetorical and organizational activities of a particular case, and as such can be generalized only very tentatively.”

This line from very near the end of the article summed up the skepticism I felt throughout the article. The results seem rather obvious: a business plan, written by the five individuals who control the entire company, one who is the president and has messed everything up to the point that the company is about to go belly up, will have a major effect on the future organization of the company. Obviously that project, with those individuals, in that context is going to create change in and be significant to almost all future aspects of the company.

Under “Implications for teaching” Doheny-Farina states, “Students’ conceptions of the demands of the course, the teacher, and their peers will impinge upon their collaborative effort. Second, the team members’ collaborative effort will build an organization.” This seems like common knowledge.

“Thus, teachers should try to put students into situations in which they need to incorporate differing points view within their group project.” Every group I have ever worked in incorporates differing points of view. Isn’t that what a group is, differing points of view.

I believe a similar study of some lower level everyday writing, though less flashy, would have been more relevant to most of the technical writing community.

I must admit that I did find it interesting how the vice presidents used the change to committee structure for writing the business plan as a power play on how the entire company would be run by committee from then on. I am not sure how I will apply this information in the business but it is an interesting sociological view into the business world.

Writing and Database Technology

The author begins by noting when the original article was written. Today, she comments, technology has advanced so far and so ubiquitously that the content is more common sense. However, despite the fact that the focus should be less on the data, the fundamental necessity for rhetorical understanding of data presentation (reports) remains the same (382). Mirel tackles the importance and nature of the "data report" derived from databases. Now, despite how dry and distant the term may be, databases can actually be very simple; even an address book may be considered a database.

Mirel defined the purpose of data reports thusly: to answer the audience's business questions with relevant data organized to that end. Ultimately, a data report allows for the transformation of raw data to useful information to decision-making power.

Despite how simple and logical that sounds, the problem was that the report writers weren't doing the transformation--the rhetorical action--and therefore were essentially burdening the report audience (e.g. managers) with the additional work of reformatting tables, finding more raw data, and so forth. The issue at hand is that report writers, the people who interface between the data technology and the people who make business decisions, don't have enough rhetorical training to make all those "facts" actually mean something. They need to understand the context, the audience, the business and organizational issues addressed, as well as the technology and data themselves (383).

Mirel discussed three issues that arose from the research of that time: rhetorical strategies are applied to data searching, retrieval, and reporting; rhetorical and technical skills are not mutually exclusive; and the data report tables must be geared towards answering business questions. Good data reports have four essentially rhetorical qualities: appropriate and relevant data, accuracy and sufficiency, effective formatting, and meaningful relationships between data and form. To further her point, Mirel conducted a qualitative interview-based study where, not surprisingly, the interviewees were all dissatisfied with a sample data report (386).

Because training in data reporting at this time was not based in rhetoric and stemmed out of the direct and functional necessity of computer training rooms instead, Mirel stresses that education must be expanded to education future writers, who must understand both ends of the data reporting process--human and technological--for the raw data to ever reach the final decision-making step of an organization. It does, however, seem like common sense now, which is a fortunate development. When I took an Access database course a little while ago, most of the exercises began in the form of a basic business question, and then the instructor gave us a few raw data tables. Getting from the database to the business question takes more skill and practice than one might think, and it seems as though current education is tackling the rhetorical side of data reporting more properly.